Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsDoes Not Work As Expected + Dying After 1 Year
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2023
•••ONE YEAR UPDATE•••
Here’s the review you want to read.
I have MCS, asthma, and severe life threatening allergies. I’m dealing with multiple neighbors smoking cigarettes and pot illegally in a posted no smoking building (pot isn’t even legal here), and trying to mask it with air fresheners and incense etc., and I have been hospitalized via ambulance several times near death from it. (No, I can’t move somewhere else, or I would.)
I got the 311i Max after reading so many glowing commentaries and spin about it, and deliberately went way over powered for my space too, out of necessity: this thing is lab rated for a space much larger. It’s in a studio under 220 square feet including bath, and the machine’s ideal room size is around 650 square feet. They say that at 650 square feet or so it should be clearing a full cycle of the room’s air in around 12 minutes, and I wanted it to clean the air ASAP without laboring for it. It’s always a good idea to go for a machine a bit stronger than you think you need.
Out of the box, the first thing I noticed was my asthma spiked up bigtime from it weeping intense VOCs, nearly hospitalizing me. It’s been running now for about 3 weeks, and that’s finally just beginning to fade.
My rescue inhaler consumption is through the roof, and my nose/sinuses are sealed shut and constantly gushing now… which shouldn’t be happening at this level of filtration. The air circulates in here so much now, I feel a breeze, and it’s ruffling my wall scrolls across the room. Serious air output.
The “smart” feature app doesn’t work with my iPhone. I tried several times, and it doesn’t want to connect or stay connected. I read their troubleshooting instructions, and even phoned their useless, rude tech support. I can tell you this much about it: it only monitors PM2.5, and the feature connecting to outdoor pollution monitoring by BreezoMeter doesn’t agree with BreezoMeter’s app set to my exact location… it’s claiming that the outdoor air quality is much better than it actually is. Meanwhile, it was claiming that my indoor air quality was excellent… as I was struggling in anaphylactic shock from my neighbors lighting up. Yep: still smelling the pot and cigarettes too.
I’m not the only one who is having problems with their app connecting at all, staying connected, and disagreeing with BreezoMeter’s app: they’re chronic problems that he majority of peoples reviews have been complaining about in the Apple App Store for years. Yes, years, and they’ve still not gotten it fixed. (Somewhat similar complaints to a slightly lesser degree in the Google Play store too-
I checked out of curiosity to see if it was only iOS users complaining.) So I have absolutely no access to any of the “smart” features, and the machine is 24/7 constantly blinking an annoying warning light, telling me that it’s failing to connect to the app.
Most of the time, the air quality indicator light on the machine is blue, claiming that the room has exceptional air quality, even when cooking. I’ve seen it go red twice for a couple of minutes when I had a hamburger cooking pan with mildly singed drippings in it. The burnt cooking smells take a long time to fade, including using the bathroom vent fan.
The dust being removed is very different from the dust my previous underpowered HEPA ionizer was removing: I now have a layer of dust quickly accumulating everywhere that I didn’t with the other machine, and strangely, it’s gritty and coarse in an immaculate room. My previous machine’s pre filter would become covered in thick, dense gray dust and have to be washed off every couple of weeks. This… after 3 weeks, it has a few specks of black lint from my bedding, visible if you look closely. That’s it. I’m noticing a huge difference in performance without the ionizer. 2 days post Swiffer detailing, I can swipe visible dust from the top of my desk and dresser with my hand. I can’t even figure out how that’s possible with this thing. There’s even a thick layer of fluffy toilet paper dust accumulating on the back of the toilet now, for the first time. I also go to the extreme measures of sealing entirely around the front door with blue painter’s tape to stop the shared air flow from the public hallway. That’s unfortunately been a way of life here for years… so you can’t say that it’s pulling in and filtering air from the hall.
Across the board, it has not been as advertised. A very expensive mistake that I’ve had absolutely no health benefits from so far.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••
ONE YEAR OF CONSTANT USE AT HIGHEST SETTING, + 1 filter replacement later:
The smart features never worked, which is a huge portion of the cost/value of the machine. It was the deciding factor for this purchase to begin with.
It also has a strange tendency to shut itself down completely for about a minute or so, then turn itself back on… though it’s not in automatic mode. A chip/electronic issue somewhere.
The machine is absolutely useless for thick second hand pot and cigarette smoke! It doesn’t even register the smoke, and says the pm2.5 is A-OK, ideal! Rarely does it think that anything is wrong with the air, in fact. Useless for mold- the room thickly reeks of it still! And ironically, it’s useless for dust too! A thick layer of dust settles in less than 24h after detailing the place top to bottom with a swiffer! The most visible dust it leaves behind on everything is what appears to be natural skin sheddings, which are dust mite food.
UPDATE 2: July 24th 2024
After strange indicator light behavior for a couple of weeks, all of the indicators are now dead. The colored light PM2.5 meter (which has never been trustworthy, and the app has never functioned with it) is now dark, along with all the lights on top of the machine that indicates that it’s running and and which speed. It’s now a very expensive fan with a filter medium over the top of it… and considering that it’s 100% electronics in there, it’s only a matter of time before the fan refuses to even run.
All in all, the worst HEPA filter machine I’ve ever owned… and the most expensive too!