The Shark Air Purifier Is on Sale at Amazon

It gives me serious peace of mind.

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Travel + Leisure / Madison Woiten

Even though I’m a travel editor, I too have an apartment. It’s not all airplanes all the time, and for me, it’s really important to have a relaxing home base to recharge my batteries in between trips. And when I do, I need my space to feel just as clean and HEPA-filtered as my favorite five-star hotels. I realized this summer after the Canadian wildfires kept raging (and wafting down to my home in New England) that to accomplish that, I’d need a good air purifier.

And wow, did all my friends and co-workers have thoughts on the subject. After a lot of recommendations, some hefty research on my part, and a great Amazon sale, I finally decided on the Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier — and long story short, I am never going back.

Amazon

This air purifier uses a powerful fan to filter out allergens, micropollutants, smoke, etc. from the air and has four purifying speeds depending on how poor the air quality is. It looks a bit like R2D2 but sleeker, and on the face of its display, you can see the percentage of how clean the air is. It uses Clean Sense IQ technology to detect when it needs to kick into higher gear and it automatically switches when the quality is poor, changing its display from red to yellow to blue to signal when it’s clean. It covers rooms up to 500 square feet; mine is in the bedroom, but I’m eyeing another one for the living room, too.

When I was considering buying this air purifier, I was really impressed that it actually slightly exceeds HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air [filter]) standards. According to the EPA, HEPA filters can “remove at least 99.97 percent of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns.” And this Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier, with its Nanoseal, captures just more than that, which the brand says means it traps “99.98 percent of large, small, and micro-sized particles.”

And stats are good and all, but I have seen my Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier in action. When the last wave of wildfire smoke hit, Boston was enveloped in a cloud of smog, and the meter turned red (or as I like to call it “angry”) signaling unclean air. It kicked into high gear, and started improving slowly, inching up to yellow zone — at least 70 percent air quality — over the next hour and a half, which I’ll take, given how smoggy it was outside. Though I felt a scratchy throat and fuzzy head outside, I had to say that inside I was feeling much more protected.

Amazon

But it’s not just wildfire smoke that it works hard on — it’s also got my back when I’m cooking (have you tried using an air fryer? They’re amazing, but mine creates a lot of smoke) and this thing turns the air back to acceptable levels within the hour. And as a pet owner, I love that it also removes pet dander and fur, and that’s a great bonus since my dog has tons of it.

I also appreciate that the Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier is very quiet — much quieter than my air conditioning unit — with only a slightly perceptible difference between the noise in the highest and lowest fan gears. I don’t even have to turn the volume up on the TV if it starts working hard after dinner.

It’s seriously so easy to install and gives me such peace of mind that I’m wondering why I didn’t buy one of these before — hello, a pandemic would also be a good time to have invested in one of these — but I’m so glad I have it now for anything that may come Boston’s way.

To be honest, what really convinced me to buy this air purifier was the glowing reviews. Over at Amazon, where the Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier has a near-perfect 4.7-star rating, shoppers seem to agree with how much they love this thing. One enthusiastic fellow New Englander reported that it “crushed the Canadian wildfire smoke” and was “really effective” cleaning their space “within the hour.” Another shopper who said it’s “exactly what I needed” raved that the Shark is the “perfect size and zero noise level.” Yet another said it’s super “easy to set up” — a major requirement for anything in my household.

The filters can last from six to 12 months, and though I haven’t had mine long enough to change the filter, one shopper reported it’s “easy to change” it — splendid. And while my allergies are luckily pretty mild, shoppers who report suffering from allergies say it’s a “game-changer for allergy sufferers.”

Whether you’re a world traveler who’s only home a few nights a month or you’re holding down the fort, I think we can all agree that the air quality where we lay our heads to rest is important. If you’re on the fence, I can 100 percent recommend the Shark HP102 Clean Sense Air Purifier for improving air quality and giving you serious peace of mind. I’m definitely adding another one to my cart while it’s on sale at Amazon for 35 percent off!

At the time of publishing, the price started at $150.

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