Ozone Generators

Ozone Generators

You may have noticed that I said that the Super Air 7 does NOT release high amounts of ozone. This is a good thing. You may occasionally see low-cost products claiming to "freshen" the air by releasing ozone. They'll talk about ozone improving the body's immune system, or how ozone is the "fresh air" smell you have after a lighting storm. They may also tell you how great the ozone layer is at protecting the planet from UV rays.

All that said, ozone in your personal air is a bad thing. While there is some science that supports the hypothesis that ozone has local effects on the immune system, ozone is also a pulmonary irritant. OSHA has regulations against high levels of ozone in a work environment and even a personal ozone generator that fits in your shirt pocket will produce higher ozone levels than what is considered safe. In rats, ozone can affect cardiac rhythm and core body temperature, and ozone can make your pulmonary system more sensitive to irritants (a bad thing, especially if you have asthma).

Fanless Electrostatic Precipitation

The Sharper Image Ionic Breeze air purifiers have received notable fame for their silence. This silent design results in reduced airflow but thanks to its silence, it's easier to keep the air purifier running at night. A recent Consumer's Report article gave a poor rating to the Ionic Breeze systems because it did not move enough air to be effective. Sharper Image is suing them for product disparagement, unfair competition, and negligence.

Their statement is that although their air purifiers aren't effective when used short term, their products are designed to run 24/7 whereas other filters may be too noisy and only run for short periods of time. In the long run, they claim they're more effective. This may be true, but clearly in terms of air purification greater airflow is better as long as the collecting plates and positive ionizer have sufficient time to capture the dust.

Lastly, in use, Sharper Image Ionic Breeze can be troublesome to clean. In Los Angeles, some owners of the Ionic Breeze systems find that cleaning the plates was necessary every other day and that cleaning the plates was more arduous than vacuuming a PC, requiring repeated soft scrubbing. I'll talk about the Super Air 7's noise level and cleaning later.