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If your home is inundated with smoke, dust, pollen, pet hair, and other debris, it makes sense to look for a way to improve your indoor air quality. While regularly vacuuming, cleaning your HVAC filters, and banning smoking in your home can drastically improve your indoor environment, many of us don't have to time or the patience to do any of those things on a daily basis.

This is where a high-quality air purifier can help.

I've been using the Coway Airmega 400 Smart Air Purifier, a new model from one of the top names in the air purifier industry for the past three decades, and it's great.
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What makes the air purifier stand out
I can only relay anecdotal evidence for how well the Airmega 400 cleans since collecting hard data would require a high-quality handheld particle counter, which costs thousands of dollars and I'm not going to try to convince my editor that the cost is justified. However, Consumer Reports performed a test on the smaller Airmega 300 and found it did an excellent job of removing dust, pollen, and smoke when running on high in a large room.

Based on my subjective experience, the Airmega 400 did a terrific job of clearing the air and it's insanely quiet. When the Airmega 400 is on its low setting, the only way to tell its running is by putting your hand over the air vent to feel the breeze. From four feet away, my sound meter registered 39 decibels — that's quieter than a computer. With the fan on high, the sound meter read 55 decibels, which is still quieter than your average conversation.

The main times I actually noticed it working was when I was doing intense frying in the kitchen, my wife was vaping inside, and I was burning incense — though not all at the same time, that'd be insane. When the purifier's pollution sensor recognized the irritants, I would see the LED change from blue (which is good) to red (which is unhealthy) and the fan would ramp up. During testing, my sensitive smoke alarm never went off and the visible evidence dissipated within a few minutes of us finishing our smoky pastimes.

I appreciate that the Airmega 400 is Energy Star-certified and features a Smart mode. When in Smart mode, the fan automatically stops after 10 minutes of low pollution levels. If it detects pollutants in the air, it automatically starts up until the levels indicate good air quality again. This helps you save on electric bills. 

Cleaning and maintaining the Airmega 400 is simple. The filter indicator lets you know when it's time to clean the pre-filters, which is about every two weeks depending on the pollution levels in your home. I just run my hand vacuum over them to remove the debris. Coway also recommends that you wipe down the vents and pollution sensor with a soft dry cloth every two months just to keep things clear.
I would strongly recommend the Airmega 400 if you have 1,500+ square feet of indoor space where you want to improve the air quality.
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