Blueair Blue Max 3250i review: An effective air purifier that’s easy on the eye

Air purifiers are generally better neither seen nor heard, and the best you can usually hope for is some clean lines and a compact unit you can hide away. Blueair doesn’t see things that way.

The Swedish air purifier specialist has always added a touch of Scandinavian style to its purifiers and the Blueair Blue Max 3250i is a great example. With its roughly cylindrical body tapering in as it goes upwards and the fabric pre-filter covering the bulk of the appliance, it’s surprisingly easy on the eye.

Blueair Blue Max 3250i review: What do you get for the money?

The Blue Max 3250i can be yours for £169, an outlay that gets you a compact air purifier with a clean air delivery rate (CADR) of 239m³/h across pollen, dust and smoke. According to Blueair’s specifications, that’s enough to filter spaces of up to 48m².

The air purifier is designed to do so quietly using Blueair’s HEPASilent tech, with noise levels between 18dB and 46dB. It has three fan speed settings plus an automatic setting that uses a particle sensor to detect the current concentration of PM2.5 pollutants and set the fan speed accordingly.

On top of this, it has a Night mode, which runs the fan at its lowest speed with all indicators off. There’s no digital display, but an indicator at the front glows from blue to red to display the air quality, while built-in Wi-Fi gives you basic smart features through an accompanying smartphone app.

The unit itself stands 48cm tall and 27cm in diameter where it is widest at the base. It weighs 3.39kg, meaning it’s relatively manageable if you need to carry it, though there’s no handle to save you from bending down.

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Blueair Blue Max 3250i review: How well does it work?

The Blue Max 3250i does a great job of balancing a solid set of features with ease of use. Just one button turns it on while another toggles between the Automatic setting, the Night setting and the three manual fan speed settings. Most of the time, you can just leave it on the Automatic setting and let it get on with things, switching to Night mode if it’s in the bedroom and you’re off to sleep.

Blueair is on the money with the noise levels, too. At its lowest fan speed or in Night mode, I found any fan noise almost imperceptible above normal levels of ambient noise. At medium settings, it creeps up to a still reasonable 37.9dB, and while it peaked at the top setting at 49dB, it was usually in the range of 45 to 46dB. That’s pretty quiet for an air purifier with this kind of power, and left to run at Automatic it’s unlikely that you’ll hear it get this high, short of some kitchen disaster.

In my tests, where I spray antiperspirant into the air of a small room and run the purifier at maximum speed, the Blue Max 3250i cleared the air from a peak of 395 PM2.5 particles per square metre to a healthier 25 PM2.5 particles per square metre within 2mins 22secs – one of the fastest clearance rates I’ve seen.

And while the smart app stuff won’t be a must-have for most people, it enables you to track air quality day-by-day and control the purifier remotely. What’s more, it gives you an ongoing update on the health of the HEPA filter and enables you to schedule times when the Blue Max 3250i will come on and off, complete with options for the days of the week and setting fan speeds. Providing you’re happy to give the app location permissions, you can even have it set to turn the purifier on and off when you approach or leave the home.

The app looks clean and is well-designed, and the Wi-Fi setup worked first time – not something you can take for granted. What’s more, it works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, enabling you to control basic functions using voice commands. Set up with Amazon Alexa, the voice controls worked well, though sometimes the commands weren’t intuitive. For instance “set fan speed to 3 on air purifier” worked, but “set air purifier to maximum speed.” did not.

Meanwhile, power consumption is kept nice and low, taking just 3W on the lowest settings and 19.3W with the fans running at full tilt. Use it for a few hours daily or leave it set to automatic, and it won’t make much of an impact on your bills.

Blueair Blue Max 3250i review: What could be improved?

BlueAir extends the lifespan of its HEPA filters with the fabric jacket, which acts as a pre-filter and can be removed and washed when it gets dirty. Meanwhile, Blueair’s RealTrack algorithm makes calculations based on the room environment, usage and pollutant levels to work out when a filter needs replacing, rather than just give it some arbitrary lifespan.

All the same, actually changing the thing is a chore, requiring you to remove the top section and a secondary section underneath, then the jacket and finally the old filter. It’s not a big deal, though, given you only need to do it every six to nine months.

Blueair Blue Max 3250i review: Should I buy it?

If you’re in the market for an air purifier that can tackle medium-sized and larger rooms, you won’t do much better than the Blue Max 3250i. It’s quiet and powerful, the Automatic mode works a treat, you can sleep with it in Night mode and the smartphone features are a useful extra. It’s also easy on the eye, and that winning combination earns it a well-deserved Recommended badge.