FROM:
Consumers Union Website
When CR tested the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra air cleaner for its February 2002 issue, it reported that the product “proved unimpressive” and that its tests “found almost no measurable reduction in airborne particles.” The company complained, maintaining that CR’s tests, based on the industry standard for measuring clean-air delivery rate (CADR) were inadequate. Sharper Image said that the Ionic Breeze technology is “vastly different” from that of other air cleaners and would fare better in a longer test.
CR’s experts re-examined their test procedures and had them reviewed by an independent expert, who confirmed the validity of CR’s methodology. This year, in addition to regular tests for air cleaner Ratings, CR then ran additional long-term tests to find out whether the Sharper Image technology is, as the company says, “so unique” that we have to “look beyond the limiting CADR test protocol” to evaluate it fairly.
In these in-depth tests, CR tested the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze and the similar Honeywell Environizer against two high-scoring air cleaners, the Friedrich electrostatic precipitator and the Whirlpool HEPA filter.
In its extended testing, CR gauged how well each air cleaner could handle the periodic introduction of small amounts of pollutant into a sealed test chamber over a 6-hour period. One set of tests used smoke, another fine dust. A second set of tests gauged how well each cleaner worked for the next 17 hours, after the last injection of pollutant. For both sets of tests, CR’s experts ran the Ionic Breeze and the Environizer on high to maximize performance; the others were on low, their quietest setting.
The Ionic Breeze and the Environizer didn’t come close to the performance of the others. CR’s experts found them quiet but ineffective and advised readers that there are much better air cleaner choices.
![[SWIRL 2]](../GRAPHICS/SWIRL-2.GIF)