Comment by highwaylights
3 years ago
I have three of the Fornuftig and am very pleased with them, save for the noise being quite bothersome at the highest setting.
They’ve helped quite a bit with a pollen allergy.
Getting good information has been a nightmare and it’s nice to see a post calling out the utter nonsense that gets spread about HEPA and filtration, with no thoughts to diffusion.
The big problem I have now is that I would like to upgrade to the Starkvind smart purifiers as they’d be ideal, save for again not being able to get any decent information on filtration and flow rate.
If the author ever reads this, I’d absolutely love a deep dive like this one on the Starkvind!
I'm not qualified at all to do a deep dive, but I've got a FORNUFTIG and a STARKVIND and can give you some thoughts.
The STARKVIND is a LOT bigger than the FORNUFTIG. Assuming you're getting the standalone model, it's probably the depth of two or three FORNUFTIGs. This really surprised me. The table version is very interesting because it eliminates that problem by being a functional piece of furniture.
The STARKVIND filters are different than the FORNUFTIG, so no filter sharing. Conceptually they're the same - a paper particle filter plus an optional carbon filter. At its highest setting it's louder than the FORNUFTIG's highest setting, but at its lowest it's virtually inaudible. If you leave it in Auto mode you'll hear it ramp up when it detects particulates in the air and ramp down when the air quality returns to normal.
The main reason I bought the STARKVIND was the Zigbee interface. The IKEA Home Smart app is functional, but after the initial setup I only use Home Assistant to control it. In Home Assistant there are sensors for particulates and filter life, and controls for fan speed and mode (auto/manual). I'm using the IKEA gateway for my STARKVIND since deCONZ support wasn't completely ready at the time. Overall, it lives up to expectations as far as control goes.
This is my use case more or less. Basically I want to be able to leave the house and say "hey google, clean this mess" and it'll start my strategically placed robot vacuums and run the filters on max while that's happening to minimise particulate spread.
Mostly though, I just want some extra power for larger rooms.
I run my STARKVIND in Auto mode most of the time, but from 4PM to 9PM I have scheduled it (via Home Assistant) to run on full power - basically to clean the air, regardless of what the sensor tells it, before bedtime.
What you're asking for is 100% reasonable and easily achievable.
Ikea Starkvind flow rates:
From https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00... "Product details" and then "Other documents" gives you
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/manuals/starkvind-air-purifier-wh...
and there the table on page 7 gives you the flow rates.
The filter is EPA12.
"The particle filter is tested according to EN 1822-1 and ISO 29463-3 which corresponds to class EPA12."
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-2-piece-filter-set-s9...
I appreciate this, and thanks.
Sadly it seems like it’s essentially giving the same not-particularly-helpful stats as listed in the authors article.
I’d love some independent particle test results for it (carried out properly as described in the article of course).