Blueair Blue Pure 311i Max review: Raising the bar on air purifier design

Best Prices Today: Blueair Blue Pure 311i Max

In a world of overpriced, exceedingly unattractive air purifiers, Blueair’s Blue Pure 311i Max is—dare I say it—a breath of fresh air. With an impressive, contemporary design that is both refreshingly simple and revolutionary, it’s another winner from Blueair that will fit in with any décor while keeping the air in the room nice and clean.

Like the Blueair DustMagnet 5440i air purifier I reviewed in late 2021, understanding the naming convention is your first (and arguably biggest) hurdle to purchasing a Blue Pure Max. There are four models in line—the 211i, 311i+, 311i, and 411i. Contrary to logic, the model numbers are in the reverse order of the room size they’re designed to operate in; i.e., the Blue Pure 211i Max is designed for rooms up to 635 square feet, while the model 411i is for small spaces of 219 square feet.

The model 311i reviewed here is for medium spaces: 387 square feet. With the fan operating at maximum, Blueair says its Blue Pure 311i Max can perform 4.8 air exchanges per hour with a CADR (clean air delivery rate) of 250 cubic feet per minute. The same rate is given for pollen, dust, and smoke).

The Blueair Blue Pure Max line is unique and quite fetching in its design.

The appliance itself is a tapered cylinder measuring 19 inches high and 12.5 inches in diameter at its base and weighing slightly less than 8 pounds. Nearly all its controls and indicators are top-mounted, with just two control buttons to work with: A power button and a mode button that cycles through five operating modes: automatic, three fan speeds, and a night mode that minimizes the fan speed and dims the lights.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best air purifiers.

A color-coded LED on the front of the device indicates PM2.5 levels, cycling from blue (all clear) to red (very polluted). Blueair doesn’t say what these colors correspond to quantitatively, but you can get a clearer picture in the Blueair app, which tracks PM2.5 pollution by the minute. More on the app in a bit.

Additional hardware features allow you to dim the PM2.5 indicator light’s brightness, turn off the Wi-Fi LED, and enable a child-lock feature, all by pressing the two physical buttons in some combination. You’ll need to read the manual closely to accomplish any of these functions.

Bizarrely, night mode does not turn off all the LEDs, leaving one of the larger lights (for “night mode,” of course) illuminated. Never mind the brightness of the colored PM2.5 indicator; what Blueair needs is a way to turn off all the lights at night.

As alluded to earlier, the Blue Pure Max line is unique and quite fetching in its design, with the entire base of the purifier working as the filter. The cylindrical filter surrounds a plastic core and includes both a carbon filter and a HEPA filter (rating unstated). Surrounding all of this is a washable prefilter that comes in your choice of four earth-toned colors, although this isn’t the easiest thing to get off and back on. Filters will last for 6 to 9 months, per Blueair, and replacements are $45, or $38 with a subscription (auto-shipping every 3, 6, or 9 months). You can also get new prefilters in any of the colors for $11 each, if you want to mix up your style a bit.

The fan sits on top of this lower filter assembly and pulls in air from 360 degrees around the base, then fires it up through the top of the device. It’s not overwhelmingly loud even on its highest “level 3” setting, but it’s too noisy on this setting for use while watching TV, for example. At the lower speed levels or in night mode, it’s virtually inaudible.

Blueair’s app is straightforward, with only a slight learning curve. Controls are all represented on the main screen, beneath the running graph of air conditions and above an LED brightness slider and filter status indicator. A simple scheduling tool is available and works well, though there is no countdown timer feature included to automatically turn the unit off after a set amount of time.

If you provide your physical address, Blueair’s app will also provide local exterior AQI conditions. And while not well-documented, both Alexa and Google Assistant devices are supported if you’d like to use basic voice control functions to operate the purifier. Air purifiers have largely become commoditized of late, categorized by their airflow capacity but distinguished almost exclusively by their industrial design. Blueair has plenty of cleaning power, and it’s hard to beat on the design front.

Best Prices Today: Blueair Blue Pure 311i Max