The Winix WAC 5500-2 is a portable air purifier which offers great value for its price tag. It's excellent for use in rooms up to 300 square feet, and offers triple air filtering.
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Pros
Pro Excellent value for money
The WAC 5500-2, with a price tag below $130, is an excellent product that offers great value. It's powerful enough to use in large rooms, it's quite portable, uses triple air filtering (to ensure the best air quality) and also has several interesting extra features, such as a timer and a remote control.
Pro Can do multiple stage filtering
This purifier uses a three-stage filtering process. The air starts by going through a pre-filtering process to capture large particles like hair and dust. After that, it goes though the carbon filter to remove odors. Finally, the HEPA filter captures the smallest particles (as small as 0.03 microns).
Pro Capable of passing air through at least 4 times per hour
The fan is powerful enough to suck the air of a 300 square feet room through the purifier at least four times per hour.
Pro Can be controlled remotely
It comes with a remote control, so you can conveniently use it to change the setting from a distance.
Pro Has a built-in timer
The unit can be set to operate for a defined time period (of 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours) and then switch off automatically.
Pro Alerts you when the filter needs changing
The control panel will display a LED alert when the filters is approaching the point when it will have to be changed.
Pro Indicates quality of air
The unit has an air quality indicator that shifts from red informing that the air is very polluted to blue when everything is okay.
Pro Capable of maintaining the air clean in large rooms
The CADR rating for this purifier is 250, enough to effectively keep the air clean on a large master bedroom or a living room.
Pro Multiple fan speeds
The unit has four fan speeds: low, medium, high, and turbo. The turbo mode temporarily boosts the cleaning performance, but also makes the fan very loud.
Pro Automatically enters night mode
The auto dim feature senses the amount of ambient light in a room and dims the control panel and notification lights, so they don’t disturb your sleep.
Pro Very portable
There's a great little carrying handle on the top of the unit and, despite its boxy shape, the device weighs only 15 pounds, so moving to from room to room is quite effortless.
Pro Hassle-free filter changing
The filters are easy to swap: it takes around two minutes to peel off the plastic protective films and put everything back together.
Cons
Con Power hungry
The unit can consume up to 120 W of electricity in its maximum speed. There are units with the same purification power that are much more economical, consuming almost twice as less.
Con Only comes in black
The air purifier is only available in a dark charcoal finish, which may not fit the design of the room you want to place it in.
Con Might not remove all the odors
The thin charcoal filter isn’t the best in eliminating odors. If that's one of your goals, you're better off looking elsewhere.