We all want to enjoy total comfort and relaxation in our homes, but nasty, lingering odors can ruin this experience. Owning an air purifier is a great way to enjoy better-smelling air in your house, while also enjoying better quality air too. Some air purifiers work to eliminate dust and allergens and won’t actually affect the odors in the air, so when you want to buy the best air purifier for odors, you have to choose carefully.
We have put together a list of the very best air purifiers that work to eliminate odors in the home. In order to cater to the widest possible audience, we chose a range of different models at various price points, so you’re guaranteed to find one that works with your budget. We also made sure to look at a range of important features and factors, including the number and type of filters, the coverage area, noise level, dimensions, and CADR when putting together this list.
Below, you can see a comparison table highlighting all of the best air purifiers we found, complete with their overall ratings and nominations, highlighting the best feature or aspect of each model. Further down the page, you’ll be able to see in-depth reviews of every air purifier, with lists of pros and cons to help you make the right choice. Finally, you can read through our air purifier for odors buying guide to make the smartest and most informed decision when shopping for your next air purifier.
More features: Plasma wave technology
At the top of our list is the Winix HR900, the very best air purifier for removing odors. A hugely powerful air purifier, the Winix HR900 comes at a high price but does more than enough to justify its steep price tag by offering so many features and so much functionality. It comes with a True HEPA filter to deal with 99.97% of pollutants, dust, and allergens in the air, along with a washable carbon filter for odors.
The carbon filter technology helps to eliminate pet odors, along with smoke, cooking smells, and more, providing super fresh and pleasant air for all the family to enjoy. The Winix HR900 comes equipped with a pet pre-filter too, capturing pet hair and other larger particles as the air purifier’s leading line of defense, so, no wonder that among Winix air purifiers it’s considered to be the best model for pets owners. It’s got some of the most powerful filtration around and scores very highly for dust, pollen, and smoke in terms of CADR.
One unique element of the Winix HR900 is its plasma wave technology, which works to break odors, allergens, and other pollutants apart on a microscopic level, improving the overall filtration potential of this device even further. It’s super quiet too, and the only real flaws we could find are the fact that it’s a little too heavy and doesn’t have the hugest coverage.
More features: Designed to either stand alone or to be mounted on the wall
One of the features of air purifiers that tends to worry many people is how noisy they can be. If you’re concerned about the possible issues that could arise from a noisy air purifier, choose the Rabbit Air MinusA2. It’s one of the most silent air purifiers you could ever hope to find, dropping as low as just 20.8 decibels. It also ranks among the best air purifier for pet odors models too, offering no less than six different cleaning levels.
The Rabbit Air MinusA2 is an exceptionally thorough air purifier, containing multiple filters and performing a whole lot of cleaning every single second, providing only the freshest and purest air for you and your family to breathe in each day. It’s so efficient at eliminating odors, with super-strong CADR scores across all three categories of dust, pollen, and smoke. It’s also got an enormous coverage area, able to handle spaces of over 800 square feet, making it ideal for larger homes or even in offices.
The Rabbit Air MinusA2 comes with a long 5-year warranty too, which is a nice bonus and offers excellent peace of mind for those who worry about their air purifier developing faults or needing repairs at some stage. It offers flexible installation as well, able to be mounted on the wall, off the ground, or left as a standalone unit. The only real cons for this model are the fact that it’s quite big and bulky, as well as having a very steep price tag compared to others on our list.
More features: Air quality sensor; Auto Mode; Whisper-quiet sleep mode; remote control
Next up, we have the Hathaspace Smart True HEPA Air Purifier. Arguably the best air purifier for cooking odors, this air purifier comes with a fair price tag and 5 cleaning levels, working to eliminate allergens, dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and pet hair, among other pollutants and undesirable elements in the air. With a powerful 5-in-1 filter system, the Hathaspace Smart True HEPA Air Purifier can eliminate up to 99.97% of particles.
It’s the perfect air purifier to have around if there are any allergy sufferers in the home, and it’s wonderful for providing fresh-smelling air too, getting rid of absolutely all nasty odors in your home. It comes with a smart air quality sensor with a display that lets you quickly and easily see the quality of the air at any time, along with other useful features like an automatic mode to adjust the fan speed accordingly and purify large or small spaces in a flash.
The Hathaspace Smart True HEPA Air Purifier is a very compact and lightweight air purifier too, as well as having an excellent silent mode for night-time air purification and odor elimination. It comes with a remote control to let you change the settings from a distance and is even capable of killing microbes in the air, providing a safer space for all the family. The only real flaw of this model is the short warranty provided by the manufacturer.
More features: Smart Sensors gauge the air and Auto Mode adjusts the fan to filter the air as needed; sleep mode for silent night-time operation
Next up, we come to the Winix 5500-2. With its matte black design and powerful technology, this air purifier wouldn’t look out of place in the home or even in a commercial environment. It features a True HEPA filter to capture 99.97% of air pollutants like pollen, dust, microbes, and more, as well as a washable activated carbon filter to get rid of unpleasant odors. This model has received a lot of great reviews from users online, with many talking about how effective it is at purifying and cleansing the air.
In short, the Winix 5500-2 is perfect for dealing with smells around the home and helping to give you the fresh, top quality, healthy air you crave. It even comes with super-strong plasma wave technology to break down odors and allergies on a microscopic level, without any harmful side effects like ozone generation. It can handle spaces of over 350 square feet, so is a good fit for small to medium size homes, and it works especially well in living spaces and kitchens.
The Winix 5500-2 offers a sleep mode with super silent operation during the night, but when you don’t have the sleep mode activated, it can get a little noisy. It also has quite a short warranty, but aside from these minor flaws, it’s an excellent machine. It scores very highly for dust, pollen, and smoke through the CADR system.
More features: Certified by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, special mode for cold and flu season
Next up, we have the AeraMax 300, and one of the first things to notice about this air purifier for odors is its design. The AeraMax 300 is a great purifier to look at, with a stylish, two-tone, black and white exterior and modern curved shape that fits nicely into most homes and living spaces. Beyond the aesthetics, this air purifier is also exceptionally powerful and efficient, enjoying high CADR scores across the board and able to provide coverage for spaces of up to 600 square feet in total.
It comes with a True HEPA filter to get rid of the vast majority of dust, pollen, and pollutants in the air around your home, and even though it only offers three cleaning levels, it’s still a powerful and high-performing machine. It’s also one of the most lightweight and compact air purifiers around, weighing in at just over 13 lbs and easy to manoeuvre around the home, never taking up too much space.
The AeraMax 300 is fully certified by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, making it a great choice for those who suffer from asthma or allergies and want to improve their overall health, and it even has a ‘cold and flu season’ mode to deal with microbes in the air and reduce your risks of getting ill in the winter months.
More features: ENERGY STAR qualified
One of the most powerful air purifiers you can buy today, the Honeywell HPA300 True HEPA Allergen Remover immediately stands out ahead of the competition for its huge CADR scores. It offers a CADR of 300 for pollen and smoke, rising to 320 for dust, making it one of the most efficient and rapid air purifiers on the market. In a matter of minutes, this air purifier can clean large spaces entirely, ridding the air of all those undesirable odors and unwanted elements.
Air quality sees massive improvements in short spaces of time with the Honeywell HPA300 True HEPA Allergen Remover, and even though it’s so powerful, this Energy Star qualified air purifier doesn’t use much power at all. It’s perfect for people who want all the benefits of an air purifier, without the worries of having to pay extra on their utility bills each month.
The Honeywell HPA300 True HEPA Allergen Remover features a discreet black design which many people find appealing, and a lot of users have spoken positively about this air purifier’s aesthetics and functionality. It’s quite a big and heavy device, so it’s not the easiest to move around, but it’s so powerful and can cover such a large space that you won’t really need to move it too much. It comes with a very long warranty as well.
And even more pluses of this very model are uncovered in the detailed review of Honeywell HPA300, which you can read through just by clicking the link.
More features: Air Quality Indicator; Auto Mode; Eco Mode
Some air purifiers can be quite big and bulky, but others are designed to be small and compact. Looking highly futuristic, the Coway AP-1512HH is definitely one of the latter category. It’s one of the smallest and most compact air purifiers around, measuring up at just 16.8 x 9.6 x 18.3 inches. It’s also super lightweight, weighing in at just over 12 lbs, so it’s very simple for most people to lift this air purifier up and move it around from room to room without any hassle or risks.
The Coway AP-1512HH comes with four cleaning levels in total. It’s equipped with a washable pre-filter, a carbon filter for odors, and a True HEPA filter for all of those bits of dust, pollen, and allergens in the air. On the CADR rating system, it scores very highly for dust, pollen, and smoke, so can offer amazing performance overall, and comes with some fun features too like an eco-mode to save energy and an auto mode for your convenience.
Overall, there’s a lot to adore about the Coway AP-1512HH. It’s one of the best all-round air purifiers you can buy, working flawlessly in any room of the house. It can get quiet when the fans are running low, but can also be one of the noisier models when it needs to function at peak capacity. But all in all, this model is as well considered to be the best model among top 20 air purifiers!
More features: Night light; available in two colors
Last but not least, we come to the LEVOIT LV-H132. Most air purifiers will cost several hundred dollars, but the LEVOIT LV-H132 is the best air purifier under $100 you can buy. Available in both black and white colors, this small, lightweight air purifier is ideal in a bedroom, a small kitchen, an office, or a similar space. It isn’t super powerful, so can’t handle huge spaces, but it’s ideal if you only want to purify the air in a little room.
The LEVOIT LV-H132 is designed in California and made to be energy efficient and highly functional. It offers relatively quiet operation, going as low as 25 decibels, but can rise up to 50 in some situations too. It features a 3-in-1 cleaning system with a pre-filter to tackle the large molecules, a True HEPA filter for dust and allergens, and an activated carbon filter for odors. This system is highly efficient and helps to compensate for the LEVOIT LV-H132’s lack of features.
Offering great value for money, this affordable air purifier for odors is a big winner in most categories. Its CADR scores are a little disappointing and the coverage area will be a problem for those with large living spaces, but the LEVOIT LV-H132’s small size, manoeuvrability, low price, and built-in night light help to make a great Budget Pick.
Now that we’ve seen some of the best air purifiers you can choose to eliminate odors in your home, it’s time to look at the various features and factors you need to look out for when buying them. There are several
Air purifiers for odors can come with a huge range of different filters, and this is one of the most important aspects to consider when investing in an air purifier.
Different filters are able to fulfill different roles. Some will be designed to eliminate dust particles and allergens, for example, while others actively work to eliminate strong odors.
One of the top kinds of filter to look out for is the True HEPA filter, which is one of the best for general air purification, getting rid of allergens, dust, and pollutants. You may also find a carbon filter, as seen in the Winix HR900, which works to capture and eliminate pet, smoke, cooking, and other household odors. The Winix HR900 also contains a pet pre-filter to eliminate pet hair and larger particles, as well as plasma wave technology to break down odors even further.
One of the first questions you need to ask yourself when buying an air purifier is where you’re going to be using it. If you’re living in a small studio apartment, for example, you won’t need such a powerful air purifier. But if you’re in a large home, a stronger device will be necessary in order to cope with the larger space.
The coverage area of an air purifier lets us know how capable it is at dealing with larger rooms and homes. Some air purifiers can only manage to purify spaces of a couple of hundred square feet, while others are much stronger and more effective. The Rabbit Air MinusA2, for instance, has a coverage area of up to 815 square feet.
Air purifiers don’t all function the same way. Some are far more advanced than others, and for a simple indicator of how advanced an air purifier really is, we can look at its cleaning levels. The best models will come with multiple stages of cleaning, which results in greater elimination of unwanted elements and particles in the air.
The Hathaspace Smart True HEPA Air Purifier and Winix HR900, for example, both offer 5 cleaning levels, while the Rabbit Air MinusA2 goes even further, offering a total of 6 stages of cleaning. The more cleaning levels an air purifier has, the deeper it will go in terms of removing unwanted odors from your home, resulting in cleaner, fresher air.
CADR stands for Clean Air Delivery Rate. Air purifiers typically come with a CADR rating, and this basically shows you how effective the air purifier actually is at removing unwanted particles from the air in your home. An air purifier with a higher CADR rating will usually be more effective and efficiency, improving air quality faster than other models. The CADR rating was invented by the AHAM (Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers) and is one of the most reliable ratings you can look at when buying an air purifier.
The CADR rating is divided up into three subcategories: P, S, and D. P stands for Pollen, S stands for Smoke, and D stands for Dust.
Many people start to worry about the noise levels of air purifiers when thinking about buying one for their own home. This is a legitimate thing to worry about, especially if you buy a low-quality air purifier, as they can be quite noisy. Fortunately, there are also plenty of models of air purifier out there that don’t generate too much noise at all. The Rabbit Air MinusA2, for example, is one of the quietest air purifiers around, able to drop below 21 dBa.
Noise level is measured in ‘decibel rating’. For reference, a vacuum cleaner can have a decibel rating of around 70 or even 80+, while the normal noise range for refrigerators and freezers is around 35-45. Quieter models are more enjoyable to have in the home, but if you don’t mind a little noise, then you won’t have a problem investing in a slightly louder model. Some air purifiers, like the Winix 5500-2, for example, come with silent or night modes for super-quiet operation.
If you’re buying an air purifier for odors, you have to think about its size and weight. Just like other home appliances and devices, air purifiers can be quite big and heavy, in some cases. Even portable models that are designed to be moved around the home can be quite difficult to manoeuvre in some cases, especially for those with medical conditions that make it hard to lift or push things.
You also have to think about where the air purifier is going to go in your home, along with the fact that it’s going to be taking up space in your property each day, so you don’t necessarily want something too big and chunky. Fortunately, there are plenty of lightweight and compact air purifiers out there. The AeraMax 300 and Coway AP-1512HH, for example, are both relatively light, easy to lift, and small in size.
We’ve included air purifiers of different prices in our list in order to appeal to those with different budgets, but no matter which air purifier you choose, you’ll want to make sure that your purchase is protected. Most air purifier manufacturers include lengthy warranties on their products, providing coverage for repairs and replacement parts, if you need them.
Most modern air purifiers are strong and durable, able to last for years without any issues or faults, but it’s still a bonus to have a good warranty.
Many air purifiers will come with warranties for just one or two years, but others will offer warranties that last for up to five years, like the Honeywell HPA300 True HEPA Allergen Remover, which is especially remarkable be one of the best air purifiers for large rooms. The longer the warranty, the more protection you have in case anything goes wrong. It’s important to remember, however, that some warranties can be void if you use low quality, unapproved filters or open up the machine yourself to try and make repairs, etc. So be sure to read the small print.
If you’re hesitating between two top quality air purifiers for odors and don’t know which one to buy as they seem very similar in most aspects, you may want to take a look at the extra features. These features won’t hugely improve the overall functionality of the device, but they will often make it easier and more convenient for you to use.
You may, for example, find some air purifiers that come with automatic modes or eco modes to save energy, like the Coway AP-1512HH, or you could consider something like the LEVOIT LV-H132, which comes with its own built-in night light to help you find it in the dark and adjust the settings. Some air purifiers come with sleep modes or quiet modes for use after dark, as well.
Overall, our favourite air purifier for odors is the Winix HR900. Equipped with a 5-stage cleaning process, including a washable carbon filter, True HEPA filter, and that all-important plasma wave technology, it’s one of the best air purifiers in the world for eliminating odors.
The next best air purifier for odors is the Rabbit AirMinusA2. One of the quietest air purifiers around, the Rabbit AirMinusA2 can simply be installed up on the wall and left to work its magic, and it’s so silent, you won’t even notice that it’s there.
Finally, our third top rated air purifier for odors is the Hathaspace Smart True HEPA Air Purifier. Fitted with lots of useful features like a silent mode, automatic mode, and an air quality sensor, this air purifier gives you all you need to enjoy the best quality air purification odor elimination at home.
But don’t forget, that also other models are good at removing odors, as for example, Therapure air purifiers, especially in smaller rooms. So, before rushing in to the store consider and collect the information, in order to invest wisely.