The Blueair Dust Magnet is a WiFi- connected Air Purifier that doesn’t just promise to
clean your air but remove the dust from it as well.
But how well does it actually remove the dust from your air?
And is it worth the $319 US dollar starting price?
I'll walk you through my thoughts on those questions after using a dust magnet for over
six months and if I think it's worth getting or not.
Now I, like I'm sure many of you, hate dust.
Maybe hate’s a strong word.
No, you know what, screw it.
I hate dust.
And with the black furniture in my bedroom that’s more prone to showing it, plus my
bedroom is carpeted, I end up seeing a lot of dust on my furniture, causing me to need
to dust about every 1-2 weeks.
So, at the time I bought my dust magnet, I was willing to try about anything that promised
to reduce the amount of dusting I needed to do.
And after using my Dust Magnet for over six months, I now find that I need to dust about
every two to three weeks, which I've been surprised by because I half expected this
thing to do, like, absolutely nothin.gBlueair claims the Dust Magnet pushes this invisible-like
vortex around your room that traps airborne dust and slowly sucks it into the machine,
which seemed too good to be true.
But when I open the filter hatch, which comes out in a similar way to a printer tray, when
I pull that out and look at the positively- charged pre-filters and clean those, you can
see they have quite a bit of dust on them after just two weeks of use which is pretty
impressive!
And if you shine a hard light at the machine, you can actually see it sucking in dust in
real time.
Here’s a shot in slow motion to illustrate this more.
So Blueair’s claims aren’t bullshit, this thing does actually pull a good amount of
dust out of the air.
Now, as I've used the Dust Magnet, I've come to realize that there are a couple of things
that you'll want to keep in mind that can affect its performance.
And the largest one of those is actually where you place the dust magnet.
It needs to be at least five inches away from a wall and I found where I put mine near my
desk, the furniture on that side of the room will have less dust on it.
But on the opposite side of my room where my nightstand is, I'll get more dust accumulation
there.
Also, one thing to be aware of when you look at Blueair’s website and see the claim that
this device will remove 99% of dust before it settles, just keep in mind that this only
applies to small dust particles and if you have the fan speed on high for more than 20
minutes, which is not a setting you’re likely going to have on all of the time, I typically
only turn on the high speed when I'm cleaning or vacuuming when I know more dust may be
put into the air that normal.
Because the dust magnet will perform its best when it's left out in the open, Blueair designed
it in a way where it has a dual purpose as an air purifier but also as a side table.
Up at the top of the unit, there's a place to put something you’d put on a small side
table like a Kindle, magazines, your glasses etc.
Now, depending on your interior decor and overall style, this may not work for you as
an actual side table.
But for me, after six months in my room, it's been fine.
Next, let's talk about filters.
The two main filters on the unit can be accessed by pulling out the filter hatches on the top
and bottom of the unit.
The main filters are rated for a life of six to 12 months, depending on your indoor air
quality and use.Blue Air also makes it pretty easy to replace filters by offering filter
subscriptions at a discount on their website.
I’ve subscribed to a few filter subscriptions so they’ll show up at my door right around
the time I’ll need to replace.
and at the 6 month mark mine had about 42% life left and you check your filter life status
in the BlueAir App.
You'll use the Blueair app to do things like connect your dust magnet to Wi-Fi and monitor
current indoor and outdoor air quality and you can scroll through to see your recent
air quality history as well.
The app also lets you control your Air Purifier remotely as well as provide a scheduling feature,
which for me after 6 months has been hands down my feature of having a WiFi connected
air purifier.
I can schedule the Dust Magnet to turn on night mode at night which turns the air purifier
into its low setting and turns off all of the LEDs on the unit.
Then I have another schedule that puts the Dust Magnet into Auto mode in the morning
once I’m up.
Auto mode on the Dust Magnet uses the air particle sensors located at the back of the
unit to measure the air quality and ramp up and down the air purifier’s fan based on
current air quality.
So for example, when I cook meat or use cooking oil, the fan will automatically kick into
high gear as the Dust Magnet senses the air quality has deteriorated and it’ll change
it’s LED status light to reflect that deteoried air quality.
Now auto mode is something other BlueAir models have like my 411 Auto which I’ve loved and
we did a review of, which I’ll link down below, But the Wi-Fi connectivity paired with
the scheduling features fix the main downside I had with that air purifier where you constantly
had to manually enable night mode.
You can also connect the blue air dust magnet to Amazon’s Smart Assistant through the
Alexa Skills feature in the Alexa app.
Unfortunately, they're currently isn't a great way to connect the Dust Magnet to the Google
Assistant or Apple's HomeKit.
For Amazon, once connected, you'll be able to use Amazon's assistant to turn your purifier
on, and off, set a specific fan speed, turn on and off auto mode, night mode, and more.
Also, if you ask Amazon's assistant to turn on auto mode, for example, It may not know
what device you're actually referring to.
But the cool thing is Amazon's assistant will actually ask you to clarify what device you're
actually talking about.
So when I said bedroom air purifier it now remembers to turn on auto mode for that device
when I just say turn on auto mode, which is really cool that it remembers what device
I'm talking about.
So now let's talk about downsides.
Now there are two main downsides I found with the Dust Magnet.
The first one being cord management.
I really wish Blue Air had figured out a way to allow you to wind up the extra chord slack
underneath the unit.
The second downside I found with the dust magnet is sometimes the scheduling feature
can be a bit inconsistent, sometimes the device would be in the wrong mode at the wrong scheduled
time.
I think part of this might just have been a software bug.
I noticed this issue early on during the testing period but not in the past 2-3 months.
So those are all the things I like and dislike about the Blue Air Dust Magnet after 6 months
of use.
I think this product is ideal for people already looking for an air purifier that want the
added benefit of being able to remove fine dust particles from your air as well, plus
have an air purifier that can connect to WiFi.
The Dust Magnet doesn’t come cheap and starts at $319 for the 5210i model for smaller spaces
and $399 for larger ones.
But if you want the heather gray model look like I have, for smaller spaces that starts
at $359.99 and $459.99 for the larger model and if you’re interested in purchasing a
Dust Magnet, we’ve included purchase links in this video and in the description below.
Keep in mind that you are still going to have to dust surfaces.
Just maybe not as frequently as you do today and larger particles of dust will still accumulate
on those surfaces because their weight typically drags them out of the air onto a surface faster
than the air currents in your room can propel them over to the Dust Magnet.
Now, you can certainly get an air purifier for a cheaper price than what the Dust Magnet
sells for.
Blueair also sells air purifiers cheaper than the dust magnet like the 411 Auto.
We also did a review on it.I think the Dust Management is more of luxury air purifier,
however, if the dust removal functionality is something that interests you, I think you’ll
be happy that you got an air purifier that has that functionality.
And for me, that functionality has made the device worth the purchase.
Now, if you have any further questions about the dust magnet, make sure you leave them
in a comment below and we'll answer them there.
And while you're down there, hit that thumbs up button if you like this video and found
it helpful, that really helps out the channel, and subscribe to the channel, all to see more
reviews of tech and home products.
And if you're looking for what to watch next, check out some of our other reviews of air
purifiers, like our review of the Blueair 411 Auto and are overview video of the Coway
AirMega 250 and you can get to those videos by clicking on the links in the description
or clicking on the playlist to the right.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.
Thanks for watching.