Review: Coway Airmega 50

I’ve been on the air quality beat for a while here at WIRED, and I often make the argument that consumers should go big when it comes to indoor air, as a larger fan and filter surface area produce a quieter and more powerful air purifier. However, if ever there were a fun-sized air purifier that punches above its weight (all 5 pounds of it), it’s the latest from air powerhouse Coway, the Airmega 50.

Standing just over a foot tall, the Airmega 50 was just launched in June and is an addition to the growing tabletop air purifier space—a mini-me to the brand's Airmega 100. The Airmega 50 has many of the features of Coway’s larger and more expensive models, and at just under $80, it’s one of the cheapest Coway air purifiers to date. I understand the desire to have an easy-to-carry tabletop-sized air purifier, but can they really clean the air effectively? For many, those proplike purifiers create a fool’s paradise. I tested the Airmega 50 with an air quality monitor to see if it was up to the job of purifying the air in my 100-square-foot bedroom.

Small Packages

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

When purchasing a tiny-footprint air cleaning appliance, one needs to know the area of the room it will be cleaning. That means you're measuring the length and multiplying it by the width. Coway claims the Airmega 50 can exchange the air in a 500-square-foot room once an hour. According to the CDC, consumers should aim for five or more air changes per hour (ACH). Following the CDC recommendation, the Airmega can effectively clean the air in a 100-square-foot space five times an hour. That's about half the size of the average college dorm room. Living in New York City, I’ve seen nurseries, home and corporate offices, Harry Potter under-the-stairs-sized bedrooms, and walk-in closets turned into dens that are around 100 square feet. If any of those descriptions match spaces in your home or at work, then the Airmega 50 is an inexpensive solution to mitigate bad air.

Airmega 50’s cylindrical design pulls in air from all sides. To achieve the ideal air exchange per hour, small air purifiers crank the fan. And more often than not, smaller does not mean quieter, though in the case of the Airmega 50, its highest setting came in at around 60 decibels on my Toptes Sound Level Meter, similar to the hum of a refrigerator. And while most white-noise machines are somewhere between 50 and 70 decibels, I found the Airmega 50’s highest setting to be too loud for nighttime. Its sleep mode turns off its indicator light and reduces the fan to its lowest and quietest setting. An air purifier's sleep mode is when the purifier becomes a less effective version of itself, and the Airmega 50 is no exception. Users have the option to turn off the indicator lights and turn on the nightlight mode. I prefer the lights off, but when my kids were little, I would have utilized the night light mode.

Size Matters

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

The Airmega 50 has many of the features that make Coway air purifiers a long-term WIRED favorite. For those with pets and young children, the control panel lock is a must. There is also a much-appreciated filter replacement indicator light, plus an eight-month filter life expectancy. Unlike some of the larger Coway models that have a variety of bespoke air filters, including ones specifically made for pet owners, allergy sufferers, and intense smoke, the Airmega 50 currently has only one option, for $30.

There’s also a preset timer that can be set to one, two, four, or eight hours, though I never use the timer mode on any air purifier, as I’m unsure when my indoor air quality will tank. I prefer auto mode, which adjusts fan speed depending on what the internal particle sensor picks up. The Airmega 50’s pollution sensor sensitivity can be adjusted to three levels: sensitive, general, and insensitive. I prefer sensitive.

I placed the Airmega 50 on the side table next to my bed and tested it in a 132-square-foot room with the windows closed. On sleep mode, my Airthings indoor air quality monitor had a 15 PM 2.5 reading. When I turned on the Airmega 50 to its highest setting, it was able to reduce the reading to 9 PM 2.5 in 13 minutes and to 4 PM 2.5 in 18 minutes. Not bad for an air purifier the size of a roll of paper towels.

One issue I have with all Coway air purifiers is the company's custom color air quality indicator lights that are different from the US Air Quality Index color-coded categories. Instead of green signaling good air, Coway’s green means the air quality is moderate. See how it’s confusing? Blue, which is not on the US AQI color scale, means good. Their orange signifies bad air, and purple indicates very bad, which is aligned with the US AQI colors. That glow of green light throws me off.

The Airmega 50 doesn’t disguise itself as anything other than an air purifier with a night light function. I’m seeing more and more air purifiers either cosplay as side tables, wall-mounted works of art, or sculpture-like monoliths, or they have two-in-one features like a touchless vacuum or cat perch. It comes down to aesthetics and price. The Airmega 50 doesn’t exactly blend into the room, but it can be placed on a side table or desk. And as air purifiers become ubiquitous in more and more homes, they may become one of those invisible items we mentally edit out of the landscape, like a speaker or router. If you have the right-sized space for a mini air purifier, then the Airmega 50 is your best bet.