From travel cup-sized cleaners to plasma purifiers, these are the most innovative equipment that CES must provide.

No matter where you take it, the Luft Duo air purifier can purify the air.

The coronavirus has rearranged modern life on a global scale, making us more sensitive to the air we breathe than ever before. New and old forms of consumer technology provide solutions to our newly discovered problems: face masks, hand sanitizers, and-in homes and workplaces-air purifiers can all help limit the spread of COVID-19. Although traditional air purifiers cannot solve the infection problem, they can reduce infection by removing aerosol particles that usually take hours to naturally settle out of the air. And now, at CES 2021, equipment manufacturers are showing new air purifiers that have more mobile designs, more energy-efficient performance, more effective filtration, and more creative methods for the basic logic of air purification.

I have written about the best consumer air purifiers on the market and interviewed air quality researchers. In general, the most effective air filtration technology is HEPA-a type of purification that has been around for decades The air method. Most air purifiers on the market use HEPA filters, which basically pass air through a plastic or glass fiber screen designed to capture at least 99.7% of 0.3-micron particles (a particularly difficult-to-capture particle ).

However, the air purifiers on CES 2021 are moving in a new direction. Here are some trends I noticed.

Sustainability: The first trend of CES is to focus more on reducing waste. For example, the purifiers of OneLife, Luftqi and CleanAirZone all completely replace the filter, and choose a washable filter. OneLife also has low energy consumption and environmentally friendly hardware, using sustainable materials such as bamboo.

Innovation in filtration methods: For many years, manufacturers have been testing other filtration methods, but HEPA-based air purifiers are still the industry standard because they are very reliable. Larger companies, such as Filtrete, Brondell, and LG, insist on using this method, even if they are adding other technologies to their devices. In other words, with the explosive growth of research on this topic, we will undoubtedly see more devices trying to use newer air purification methods. Although these devices definitely need to be tested before we can praise them, this innovation is welcome, if only to develop our understanding of air quality and purification in the long run.

COVID-19: The coronavirus is not just the elephant in the CES room this year, but the room itself. The pandemic has completely changed CES, and it is a huge driving force for equipment manufacturers. Compared to talking about eliminating airborne virus particles, solving the dust and pollen problem is much lower on the priority list of developers selling purifiers. This means that UV and other forms of disinfection technology may appear disproportionately in this year’s air purifiers-as we have already seen, almost every air purifier developer concentrates most of their information on them How to eliminate virus particles on your device.

Although I can't test these gadgets yet, these new air purifiers do represent some truly exciting ideas. The following are the most innovative air purifiers on CES 2021 so far.

Read more: The best air purifiers of 2021

Scosche's new FrescheAir purifier is the size of a travel mug-intentionally, because it is designed to fit in the cup holder of your car. FrescheAir plugs into your car socket and keeps the car free of dust and allergens. In addition, there is a display on the top of the device, which can display the air quality, humidity and temperature in the car.

OneLife's X air purifier has a dishwasher safe filter and a plasma cleaning method-essentially by generating ionized particles to change the state of harmful particles that have been floating in the air. Plasma purifiers can definitely remove pollutants from the air, although they often change the particles to attract them to the surface around the house instead of trapping them in the purifier. (But please note that the performance of OneLife still needs to be tested.)

OneLife X has some unique and eye-catching features: its shell part is made of sustainable-source bamboo, which has low energy requirements. OneLife means that the machine runs quietly. The latter two statements also need to be tested. But if they persevere, it will be an impressive achievement—especially because the air purifier is often plugged in and forgotten for a long time.

Luftqi's Luft Duo is a battery-powered air purifier that you can take with you. If you want to put it on your desk while working, then bring it into the car, or even put it on the table in a coffee shop, Luft Duo will obviously purify the air around you throughout the day.

Luft Duo also has a removable and washable filter instead of a disposable HEPA filter. In addition, it uses UV LEDs and photocatalysis (basically light activated) technology to break down irritants and pathogens. If you have used an air purification device like Molekule, this method may sound familiar. It uses another form of photocatalytic technology to break down small particles. Molekule has encountered performance problems, but this does not mean that the underlying technology does not have great potential.

Luft Duo's 2020 crowdfunding campaign was very successful, raising more than 300,000 US dollars in the past few months, so people's enthusiasm for this air purifier is high. We are happy to test it ourselves.

Airthings' new device is not a purifier, but an innovative gadget that can be used well with air purifiers-and can be intelligently combined with them in the future. The Wave Plus sensor ($230) can track risk factors related to the spread of viruses in the workplace, namely carbon dioxide levels, humidity, and temperature. It then provides this information to office managers, who can theoretically make adjustments to make the room less suitable for the wrong virus particles.

Wave Mini ($80) is suitable for home use, it focuses on the risk factors of mold, rather than the spread of viruses.

Both devices are very creative and can help people understand different types of air quality in different spaces. Although they are not air purifiers, I think the ideas behind them may have an impact on the design of future purifiers—especially because many air purifiers already use some form of air quality monitoring.

CleanAirZone or CAZ demonstrated a new air purifier at CES that uses "natural organisms and enzymes from nature" to clean the air instead of using traditional filters. The company said its proprietary mixture of water, microorganisms and natural enzymes will eliminate airborne pollutants, including coronavirus particles.

CAZ's goal is to eliminate the waste of other air purifiers-most notably their disposable filters-and create a more sustainable "green" environment in the home. Like the other air purifiers on this list, the technology is promising, but we won’t make judgments until we test the products ourselves.

OneLife X, Luft Duo and CAZ purifiers are the three most interesting devices announced at CES so far. However, during the pandemic, other large companies are meeting the demand for air purification equipment.

Most notably, Brondell will soon release its Pro Sanitizing air purifier, which is an equipment tank: Brondell's air purifier does not focus on innovative new filtration strategies, but uses a shotgun method. This means HEPA filtration, sterilizing UV lamps, nanocrystal filters and plasma generators. Each of these technologies has advantages and disadvantages, but in general, they cover most of the air irritants and infectious diseases you will find in any house.

Brondell's new Pro air purifier has four filtration methods, plus a pre-filter, all priced at $650.

Brondell Pro can effectively purify the air in a space of 538 square feet and will be sold at major retailers for $650.

Filtrete also introduced two traditional air purifiers that can use HEPA filters to capture 99.97% of airborne particles. The Filtrete air purifier can track the filter life and provide voice control through Alexa and Google Assistant. It covers an area of ​​150 or 310 square feet and is priced at US$274 and US$329, respectively.

LG announced three new air purifiers-PuriCare Mini, PuriCare and PuriCare 360​​-each of which covers small and medium areas of the house through traditional HEPA or HEPA-like filtration. Although prices have not yet been announced, they are comparable to purifiers that cost less than $500. The only PuriCare air purifiers released so far cost far more than $1,000 in a coverage area of ​​approximately 500 square feet, so they may eventually land in a price category that is more expensive than the usual size of equipment.

CES has just begun, so we will update this article as the show progresses and add them when we find more devices.

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