This Top-Rated Levoit Air Purifier Makes My Cat Allergy Bearable

Your roommate just baked a massive batch of baked filets of salmon. You have a date planned in one hour and the entire place reeks of hot fish. Opening the windows isn’t going to cut it. There’s only one solution (besides spraying the place down with Axe and giving your crush a migraine): Crank the hell out of a reliable, top-tier air purifier.

Besides enjoying a home without lingering food smells, I’m someone who’s very sensitive to animal hair. I will sneeze all day long if it gets out of control, but living with roommates makes the issue more tough given that one of the people with whom I share an abode has a cat. I can’t rely on her (or any human, let’s be honest) to clean out every single strand of cat hair in our place, so my air purifier does all the dirty work. Meet the Levoit Core 300 Air Purifier, my solution to fresh air.

When I decided I needed to buy an air purifier, what with the cat and the cooking smells, choosing this Levoit model was a simple choice given its super-high 4.7-star average on Amazon, “whisper quiet” air filter, and its ability to work in spaces of up to 1,095 square feet. I’ve been using it for almost three months and wish I would’ve bought it sooner for clean, odorless air. Here’s a breakdown of all the pros and cons of this powerful little home appliance.

What was rad

At 14.2 inches high and 7.5 pounds, the Levoit Core 300 Air Purifier is pretty portable in size, which is great if you’re constantly apartment hopping (aka, me, unfortunately). For context, it’s roughly the size of two gallon jugs of water stacked on top of each other. It claims to freshen 219 square feet of air within 12 minutes thanks to the 45-watt power supply and high-torque motor.

The user interface is simple and easy to use, with a LCD touchpad on top of the machine. You can control the fan speed, set a timer for it to run up to eight hours, switch on sleep mode, lock the screen, and turn off the display light.

My roommate’s cat came into my room to chill and—right on time (thanks, allergies)—my nose started getting stuffy. I fired up the air purifier and felt relief within 10 minutes. That sounds super fast, but this could not just be a placebo effect; my nose doesn’t lie. The VortexAir Technology evenly purifies air throughout a room by creating an air vortex (hence the name), while the three-stage filtration system snags fine pollen and pet dander (as well as dust and smoke) and pulls it out of the air.

The Levoit emits a soft noise that’s quiet enough to sleep through and honestly can double as a great white noise machine with its QuietKEAP Technology, which utilizes shock pads to reduce motor noise and raise abrasion resistance to withstand the friction of the motor.

What you should know

Levoit recommends changing the filter every six to 12 months, depending on your air quality and level of pollutant exposure. To make things easier, the “check filter indicator” light will appear on the LCD touchscreen when it’s time to check the filter. (The light means it’s time to check the dust build-up and doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change it, FYI. I haven’t changed my filter yet given I have only had it for just under three months.) When the time comes, Amazon sells replacement filters.

TL;DR: Thanks to this compact but effective air purifier, I’m not gonna let allergies and odd smells send me back out into this wild New York housing market. The Levoit Core 300 Air Purifier makes dealing with roommates’ lifestyles bearable while providing the clean air your lungs deserve. And, now I can pet cats in peace. Meow.

The  Levoit Core 300 Air Purifier is available on Amazon.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.