Sharp FPA80UW Air Purifier for Large Rooms

I've had this air purifier for about a month, and I like it! For now I'll give you my initial impressions, and I'll come back if I have anything to add later. Some reviewers have mentioned plastic smells. When I first opened the included filters and installed them into the unit, I did notice a very slight odor. However, once I turned the machine on and started using it, there was no smell whatsoever. The air that comes out of this air purifier has no odor that I can detect. I tend to be sensitive to chemical smells, but I'll admit that some people may be able to sense odors that I cannot. The best we can do here is describe our own experiences. One of the first things you will notice about this model is that it is always processing a significant amount of air, even if it is making no noticeable noise. It's quite impressive. The clean air blows out of the top of the device, so it contributes to air circulation without blowing in your face. I've had two air purifiers before this one. The first was one of the round Honeywell HEPA models. I bought that one in the late 90s, when HEPA air purifiers were a novelty. The Honeywell was very loud, and I never really felt that it was doing much to keep our air clean. Eventually I think I gave that one away. Back in 2011 I bought a Sanyo ABC-VW24 Air Washer Air Purification System with Electrolyzed Water Technology . That was a very nice device, and I'm still using it. The electrolyzed mist feature doesn't work as well as it used to, but the machine pops into action when smells appear, and it noticeably improves the air quality in our home. Sanyo was acquired by Panasonic, which still makes a line of air purifiers but apparently doesn't sell them in the United States. The Sharp FPA80UW is bigger than my Sanyo, and it seems to be at least as effective. It doesn't respond to smells as noticeably as the Sanyo but it doesn't have to, since as I said it is *always* processing a significant amount of air--and silently! If you put your ear right next to the unit you can hear some air flow and a very slight sound of small particles of activated carbon rustling in the filter, but this thing is amazingly quiet. I think it makes sense to get this model over the FPA60UW, unless you are only going to use it in a small room. The two use the same filters, but the FPA80UW can process more air in less time, which means it will make a bigger difference in your air quality. The thing to remember about air purifiers is that they can't eliminate odors whose source remains present. So no air purifier will get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke if there's a smoker in your home, or the smell of mildew if you have a moisture problem. If you have a damp basement, probably the best thing you can do for the quality of the air in your home is to install a dehumidifier in your basement. Once you have eliminated odor sources, I would strongly recommend this air purifier to help keep your home's air clean. Finally, when I was shopping for an air purifier I found the following resource to be very helpful: air-purifier-power dot com.

It's an excellent air purifier & very quiet. I have it in a large bedroom and it works very well. I have terrible allergies, but now don't wake up sneezing in in the middle of the night or all congested. And, another plus is I barely have to dust! It runs 24/7 even with the bedroom door open and it's very effective for that whole part of the apartment. Where I live is not only near major intersection & freeway, but there are many blooming trees and gardens year round. This is the first time in the 3 years that I've been living in Sherman Oaks that my allergies are under control. I've tried many other brands of air purifiers, but this one is the best. At first I thought it might not be working because it was so quiet, but when I brought in a basket of dirty laundry to sort suddenly I heard swoosh & the light turned red in reaction to the dirty clothes as it went into attack mode. Same thing if I've happened to open my window and a smoker walks by. There is something about the Plasmacluster technology that makes the atmosphere very relaxing (I have a Sharp portable AC with the same technology in another room). I am sold on this technology. It's a very nice design and looks great. It's light enough to move easily. If you don't like the display lights you can hold down the touch panel button on the left and the lights go out. The delivery from Amazon.com came much faster than anticipated (I think I got it in less than 2 days) and it was well packaged. Highly recommend this product.

I've had this unit for just a day, so this is a preliminary review based on a minimal amount of time with the unit. For a little background, I have this unit in my bedroom, which is 700 square feet with very high ceilings. I also run an IQAir Health Pro Plus in the bedroom. My main purpose for buying the Sharp was to assist the IQAir during bad air days because the size of my bedroom is pushing the upper limits of what the IQAir can handle. I use a Dylos DC1100 Pro laser particle scanner to test the effectiveness of my air purifiers. My house is currently running about 400,000 particles per cubicle foot, which is relatively dirty air for my neighborhood. It's a pretty smoggy day out in Southern California today. Running the IQAir I was only able to reduce the particle load to about 160,000. So I set up the Sharp and ran it on high for six hours today. When I came back to test it, my Dylos was showing a reading of 10,000 particles, which is almost a 95% improvement in air quality - not bad! For my next test, I move the unit down to my office - 150 square feet, so much smaller than the bedroom. The particle count when I first begin the test is 300,000. After ten minutes running the Sharp, the count drops to 25,000. After twenty minutes I'm at 13,600. After forty minutes, it drops to 12,500. It seems to be stuck there. Excellent air quality, according to the Dylos monitor, is 7,500 or below. So 12,500 places it squarely in the "very good' category. I also tried testing the air coming out of the Sharp by placing the Dylos up right next to the unit. I routinely do this with my IQAir to confirm it's still blowing clean air. The IQAir always shows it is blowing zero particles - completely clean air. With the Sharp, the Dylos tells me the unit is blowing air with between 1,000-1,200 particles between .5PM and 2.5PM in size, but zero particles larger than 2.5PM. So while this air is pretty darn clean coming out of the unit, it is evident that some of the air is bypassing the filters and leaking out of the unit. Taking a closer look at the filters gives me an idea why this may be. Both the HEPA filter and the prefilter are very loose fitting. In fact, the prefilter just flops around in the unit while it's turned off, but then when the unit is on the filter get sucked into place and stays pretty still. I'm guessing there is some leaks around the edges since the filter is not sealed into the unit. I may experiment with some tape to try and tighten up the seal and reduce the bypassing. The filters come wrapped in plastic from the factory. To remove the plastic you have to remove the cover panel and take out the filters. To remove the panel, you lift it up from the base and pull it out. Doing this was the first indication to me of why this unit cost almost a fourth of the price of the IQAir. The cover is flimsy, held on by some plastic clips on the bottom which look like they could easily snap off. And the entire unit is made of very thin plastic. When I pick it up to carry it from room to room, I hear the filter rattling around, and the unit just doesn't feel like it's solidly put together. I'm guessing this is why Sharp only gives it a one year warranty. Another noticeable difference between the two units is the filters themselves. The Sharp prefilter looks like a wafer thin piece of foam with some tiny carbon pellets in it. If it had shipped separate from the unit, I would guess that it could easily get damaged in shipping if the box was not particularly well packaged. The HEPA filter looks a bit more sturdy, but it's barely an inch thick and not nearly as well constructed as the IQAir HEPA. To be fair though, the replacement cost of the IQAir filter set is $369.00, substantially higher than the cost of this entire unit. So my initial impressions of this unit are that it is very powerful - blowing over 300 CFM on high and about 14 decibels quieter than the IQAir on its highest setting. It's obvious that the unit can clear particles from the air very quickly, even in a larger sized room. The HEPA filter is rated to capture particles down to .3 microns. IQAir's HyperHepa filter captures particles down to .003, or 100 times smaller than standard HEPA. From the research I've done, there are actually quite a few particles below .3 microns which can be very dangerous to your health if you suffer from asthma. As a standalone unit, this certainly does the job of reducing the particle count in the air, and it does it a very respectable noise level for its output. And as a back up unit to assist the IQAir, it has a tremendous impact as an assistant. My biggest concern is the somewhat flimsy feel of the unit, along with the short one year warranty. At some point I will need to order a replacement filter set for this, and the filters cost about $60 for the HEPA and $30 for the prefilter. These are certainly reasonable prices as long as the unit itself holds up. But something tells me I'll be looking for a replacement for this unit in two or three years, while the IQAir will still be going strong 10-15 years from now. So if money were no object and I wanted the best filtration possible, I'd probably buy a second IQAir unit. If you are considering just one unit, and you can't cost justify the IQAir, the Sharp is a very worthwhile investment. If you want something in the under $300 range, I'd say this unit is probably the best one out there that I could find, and I'm sure it will play a very useful role in my household. UPDATE 2/8/2015 This morning I placed scotch tape around the entire edge of the prefilter to create a tight seal with the unit. Taking another round of measurements with the particle counter, I now show a reading of anywhere from zero particles (both .5PM an 2.5PM) to about 200 .5PM, still 0 2.5PM. It seems to be averaging about 100 particles in the .5PM size. So a few cents worth of tape has reduce the particles coming out of the unit by 90%. Not a bad investment. I probably should have taped the HEPA filter first, but now that the prefilter is tightly sealed, I will just leave it as is and continue to monitor output. I like this unit a lot more now that I see virtually particle free air blowing out of the unit!

If you do not live in a dry area, having a reasonable amount of humidity (water) for this "Plasmacluster" Ionizer to create hydroxyl ions from, then this tech cannot currently be beat. This tech definitely works. The closest competitor are PCO (Photo-Catalytic Oxidation) devices which also create hydroxyl ions although a different process, but they use 10x the power. To be fair, a "good" PCO will also kill more airborne viruses, but apparently they are not all "good" at this point. Back to Sharp's entry, the FPA80UW and FPA60UW are the same device, except 2 things. First the motor is heavier duty in the FPA80, and both run at low speed at 71cfm but the FPA80 is 2dB quieter, and 2dB in a range that you can tell. So it's worth the extra money, if you are sleeping with this in the bedroom to get the 23dB FPA80 rather than the 25dB PFA60. I can hear the difference. It's worth the money if you need to clean a large area, the FPA 60 won't handle it. Our calculation of Sq. Ft. "CADR", the CFM produced, and reality, lead us to believe the room size in Sq. Ft. is overrated by Sharp Japan, using probably a 7 ft. ceiling as the constant. Keep this in mind if you have 9 ft. ceilings, we figure 7/9 of rated Sq. Ft.. The second thing different, the FPA80 has the dust sensor built in. A nice feature, it seems to sense higher levels of dust as designed, but not a "have to have". Filters. Sharp has a standalone FZ-A60HFU 1.5" HEPA replacement. You can buy the charcoal foam in rolls. They(edit) did step up and supply part FZ-A60HFU for their units. The Whirlpool and Alen each make superior 2" filter (the filter bay is over 2" deep so it fits), for less $$, that could be made (cut) to fit. In conclusion, Sharp has a great product and is charging a premium for it.

When I selected this purifier, I was looking for something that would be quiet and yet efficient for a medium-sized room, unobtrusive-looking, simple in operation without too many bells and whistles, and with at least 1 year of the HEPA filter life. This Sharp model seems to fulfill all of the above so far. I bought it for my parents' bedroom because my mom has a slight allergy to our dog's hair, which makes it hard for her to fall asleep sometimes. Since we got the filter, she has been running the Quick clean function, followed by auto, every night, and has told me that her allergy symptoms have completely disappeared when she is in the bedroom. On low, the purifier is virtually silent, with the only sound being the extremely quiet clicking of the plasmacluster (if you turn that off, the purifier is even quieter). When we have it on auto, the filter defaults to low most of the time - I think I saw the "air quality" bar turn yellow and the filter turn up to medium once since we got it a couple of weeks ago. Not sure how effective the auto-detection of air quality actually is, but the air in our house isn't particularly dusty or smelly, so I'm not too surprised that the purifier is on low most of the time in auto mode. When I bought this model, I thought that the option to turn off plasmacluster was really important because I'd read that it dries out the air, so I thought it would be nice to be able to shut it off. However, I haven't noticed a difference in humidity levels in the house since we bought the unit, and my parents haven't complained yet, so the plasmacluster just keeps running at all times. I was very surprised by the size of the purifier when it arrived - I expected it to be a lot smaller for some reason - but it's quite light and portable despite being fairly tall, and the design is very classy. The lights are not too bright - the air quality/plasmacluster indicator light (not the other lights) can be turned off optionally, but they are so unobtrusive that my parents just keep them on at night. We'll see how this thing holds up with time, but I'm very satisfied so far.

Works well. Nice and quiet on low setting. I have to put my hand over it to make sure it is running. High is louder but not horrible. If you are sitting next to it on high then yes it is an issue but around the corner and 20 feet away not a problem at all. Even at low it does seem to move the air. I do feel the air is cleaner. I tend to wake up with less sinus issues when I have it running. I tend to leave it running all the time on low and hit the 10 min boost button when I think the air needs it. It does automatically kick up when the sensor gets tripped by something. Will kick up to high when the spray can is used in the next room so I know it senses something.

I thought I was going to die when I first got my cats. It turns out I have been highly allergic my whole life and never knew, WHOOPS! Anyway this keeps the amount of dust and dander to a minimum in my house, which is not only great for me physically, but it also creates a lot less dusting and cleaning for me. It's not FLAWLESS but coming from a house without an air purifier, I would never go back! This is also really easy to clean, and its super quiet unless you put it on the high settings, but on auto it's like SILENT. I have it in my living room right behind my couch where I watch TV and it never disturbs sound conversations. The only time it get loud is when it needs to be cleaned, and it will only do that for about 10 seconds, all of a sudden you'll hear the fan kick up into high gear and the little red light comes on that it needs to be cleaned, and then it goes back to normal until you get to it. I really think this thing is great, it's a lot quieter than my Honeywell HHT-081, that thing started knocking about 4 months into it's life. (I still run it, but in the basement away from me) This thing is as quiet as the day it came out of the box and has earned it's right to the living room!

I've tried so many air purifiers due to my allergies but realized how ineffective they were after reading an article about how manufacturers claim it catches 99.7% particles (but don't specify the size of the particles). From the Vornado AQS 500 to the Honeywell, they just didn't help at all and I still found myself relying on Zyrtec and Allegra just to alleviate my headaches. After a month of using the Sharp FP-A8OU-W I can honestly say this is a really good machine despite the high price. Whenever I feel the my sinuses acting up, I hit the quick clean and my symptoms vanish after 10-15 minutes. It's extremely quiet and has an auto-sensor on how dirty the air is. I thought mine was broken because it was constantly green, but when my cats jumped up on it once it switched over to orange (dirty cats!) which was interesting but it still stayed on low. Regardless, I just hit that quick clean when needed and it goes full blast for about 5-10 minutes or so and reverts back to low which is nice. I don't know if that Ion plasmacluster actually does anything but sound cool but I'm not complaining since this is the only air purifier that actually worked for me.