After trying out many different home air purifiers on the market, I recently came across the Molekule. It looked so radically different from the others. It was compact, simple, and modern. I had to try one.

We’ve now had the Molekule running in our bedroom for over 30 days. The following is our first-hand impressions.

Molekule Air Purifier Review / Rating

Let me set the stage for you a bit: We are a family of four. Three of us have active allergies to mold, dust mites and pet dander. We live on a busy street and as such dust is a huge issue in our house. We also have a dog.

For over a year now, our go-to purifier has been the IQAir HealthPro Plus, an excellent air purifier and in my opinion one of the better HEPA-based filters around. As I noted in our review of the IQAir Purifier , it’s biggest drawback is its size – it’s a rather large appliance made specifically to handle larger rooms – and it’s sound. At any speed halfway or above, it has an audible drone.

The Molekule Fits Into Any Modern Home Design

We wanted something smaller for the bedroom, and boy did I find what I was looking for in the new Molekule Air Purifier.

Designed in Cupertino?

No, that’s not actually where the Molekule was designed, but it give off the “Apple” design vibes – and that’s a good thing.

Unpacking the Molekule, the first thing that caught my eye was the solid aluminum exterior casing. Paired with the leather handle, this spaceship-esque device sits beautifully in any room. One thing the Molekule does right is in it’s exterior design.

Leather strap handle is nice touch.

Clean LCD Controls

Everything is fit tight, no visible seams or rough edges. Even the leather handle is playful and utilitarian.

This appliance looks like a thousand dollar product. Thankfully, it’s not.

Practicality is Key

At $799, we found the Molekule to be priced fair. It looks and feels like a more expensive machine. From the slick LCD screen on the top to the interface on the iPhone app, everything oozes iterative testing.

A compact, clean design is key to the form factor of the Molekule.

Nothing on the machine has the beta, half-baked, startup feel we’ve come to expect from new startup products.

I could tell you this product was released by Apple and you wouldn’t know any better. It’s 100% elegant function.

But exterior design aside, does this thing filter the air?

PECO is the Next Big Thing in Air Filtration

Molekule’s Patented NanoFilter

PECO stands for photo-electrochemical oxidation. It sounds high tech and futuristic, because it is. NASA has been using technology like this in it’s air filters on the International Space Station for quite some time.

Sub-Zero / Wolf use a similar PCO system utilizing titanium dioxide in their Pure Air Filtration system in their refrigerators to great effect.

Basically, the way the Molekule filters the air in your home happens in three stages:

First: the air passes through a Pre-Filter at the bottom of the unit, this is similar to a traditional HEPA filter, although not quite as dense. It stops your larger particles such as pet dander, dust mites, pollen etc.

Second: the air passes up through the machine and through their cylindrical “Nano” filter, which is coated in their proprietary Nano-PECO solution. The stops all the smaller particulates and VOCs.

Finally: A UV light activates a chemical reaction within the Nano Filter which destroys the Mold, Viruses, Bacteria, and all Allergens that are caught in the filter, breaking them down with oxidation.

This is different from standard HEPA filtration in one important way: the destruction of pollutants down to the nano level: 0.1nm to be exact. The PECO filtration process can destroy particulate matter that would otherwise not trapped by a typical HEPA filter.

And Molekule has a study and white paper to back up these claims.

Set-up is a pleasure thanks to the Molekule app.

Set Up is a Cinch

The Molekule couldn’t be easier to pair with your phone and link to your Wifi. It has a well-polished iPhone or Android app that walks you through each step with ease.

Once your Molekule is booted, it asks you to select your room size, pair your phone, and away it goes.

Its first action is to take in air from the room and determine the air quality. Then, it spends some time on high-speed doing a quick cleaning of the current room air. After it’s deemed to have cycled all the air in the room it goes into “Auto” mode where it will stay until it determines an air quality issue or the user switches to a different speed.

Close-up of unit in “Calibration” mode

Gripes and Nitpicks

Speeds is one thing the Molekule seems to be lacking. There are only 3 speeds to choose from currently:

• Silent
• Auto
• Boost

Silent Mode is just like the name implies, virtually silent. Air movement is very low and I would venture to say somewhere around 20cfms. Not enough to cycle through much air in your room each hour.

Auto Mode is barely audible and moves the air at a decent clip.

Boost Mode is loud, there is just no other way to put it. You will likely only use Boost mode when you leaving the room and want to get an extra “boost” of air cycles while you’re gone.

One other issue I found to nitpick about is the underwhelming warranty the Molekule ships with. A 1 year warranty these days is a little silly, especially on an appliance this expensive. I mean, the appliance only has 1 moving part and 4 main components.

The Difference Is Real

I’ve owned several bedroom air filters by Winix. At $349 they were cheap and for many years they were all I used. When I moved the Winix air filter out of my room and installed the Molekule instead, I was astounded in the noticeable difference in air quality after only one day.

The air in the room is clean and I sleep easy at night with no more allergy flare ups before bed.

At $799, the Molekule is twice the price of the Honeywell and Winix units out there, but it will do one thing they can’t: truly scrub the air of pollutants. If you are an allergy sufferer like me, this unit can really make a noticeable difference in your life.

Verdict:  Buy

Related:

MoleKule Clinical Trial Results Overview

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