Molekule Air Mini Plus Review: Clever air filtration tech

Verdict

The Molekule Air Mini+ is compact, stylish, and feels very nicely made. It uses the same infrared-powered PECO technology as all Molekule filters, so it also promises extremely healthy air.

However, this is an expensive air purifier and – given it’s aimed at bedrooms – it’s not particularly quiet. Replacement filters are costly too. While it may be worth it if you want the very best protection from germs and other organic substances, there are far cheaper alternatives available.

Introduction

The Molekule Air Mini+ is essentially a shrunken version of the full-size Molekule Air Pro, with slightly downtuned features. Designed to clean the air in bedrooms, it’s a compact air purifier featuring HEPA13 and carbon filtration stages. Additionally, it’s got a proprietary technology designed to break down organic pollutants – I’ll explain more about that in my review.

This compact purifier features a sensor designed to pick up particulates in the PM2.5 category. This lets it detect dirty air from pollution, cooking or pollen, and work harder until things are cleaned up again. It’s also a smart device, offering monitoring and control through a simple app.

Design and Features

• A comparatively attractive air filter
• Useful air quality monitoring
• Slightly simplistic app and controls

The Molekule Air Mini+ has a great design, if not quite as remarkable as the full-sized Air Pro. It has a similar bullet design in which dirty air is drawn through a large gap above the base, rather than perforations around the entire body. This gives it a comparatively slick and unbroken appearance, but it’s made from plastic, rather than the gorgeous aluminium used in the larger model.

The Molekule Air Mini+ fits together in a satisfyingly classy way. You release its top with a slight anticlockwise twist, after which the entire section lifts off. This part contains the motor, casing, and a large central spine covered in ultraviolet lights. It has multiple contacts to carry electricity from the base part. The base contains the air quality sensor and provides a home for the filter itself.

Molekule’s filters contain a standard HEPA13 layer capable of filtering out pet dander, dust and other minute particles.

As with many other air purifiers, the filters also contain charcoal, which helps absorb and neutralise odours and other unwanted gases. However, the most interesting feature is the so-called photoelectrochemical oxidation (PECO) stage.

This is claimed to involve a catalytic reaction that breaks down any organic material that makes it through the previous filtration stages, including bacteria, viruses and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It’s powered by UVA light, which itself has some germicidal qualities. While I can’t test how well this works, Molekule’s website hosts multiple studies that suggest it does. Its air purifiers are also cleared as medical devices by the US Food and Drug Administration.

PECO may be a promising technology, but it makes for expensive filters. The Molekule Air Mini+ needs a new filter roughly every six months, and each costs $100. You can get a discount to $80 if you’re happy to sign up for a twice-yearly subscription, which also gets you free delivery.

This air purifier has minimal onboard controls, featuring a single button with a range of indicator LEDs. You press the button to toggle between the five available fan speeds and the Auto Protect mode. There’s no timer mode or child lock.

Auto Protect uses the reading from the onboard PM2.5 sensor to set an appropriate fan speed, stepping things up and down as the reading rises and falls. This class of particulate pollution tends to include pollen, along with soot from car exhausts or cooking, so it’s commonly focused on by air purifiers with a single air quality sensor – it’s a good feature to have.

I initially had some problems resetting my previously used sample so that it would pair with my wireless network.

After a few attempts it joined without further issue, and it was simple to connect the purifier to the app. While this is clean and easy to use, however, it’s not particularly fully featured. Molekule says that its air purifiers should run constantly, so you can’t set a schedule or an off timer. If you really want to turn them off, you need to do it manually, or use a smart switch – the Air Mini+ will resume its previous mode when you turn it back on at the socket.

The app simply duplicates the options found on the Air Mini+ itself, and adds in current and historic air quality readings.

The Molekule Air Mini+ works with Alexa, but not the Google Assistant or IFTTT. That’s a bit of a shame, as you can’t for example use a high PM2.5 reading to trigger actions in other smart ventilation devices.

Performance

• Fair filtration
• Loud at high speed settings
• Low power consumption

I test every air purifier by shutting it in a small room with a burning smoke pellet, timing how long it takes to scrub a high concentration of particulates from the air. I don’t expect smaller purifiers to complete this tough task very quickly, but the Molekule Air Mini+ was a little underwhelming. Working on its fastest fan speed, it needed 15 minutes to return the room’s air to a ‘moderate’ PM2.5 reading of 143 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³⁾, and a further 10 minutes to get it to ‘good’. By way of a comparison, Levoit’s Core 300S hit the first benchmark in 11 minutes, and the second in 16.

I’ve noticed that this test often leaves a lingering smell in the filter of an air purifier that’s endured it, sometimes for several months. Like the Air Pro, the Molekule Air Mini+ smelt neutral as soon as I’d removed it from the test room. It’s possible this might be thanks to the action of the PECO stage, breaking down any lingering particles.

This isn’t the quietest air purifier I’ve tested, which could be an issue if you are intending to use it in a bedroom. I found it easy to background when running at its lowest speed, but subjectively it seemed noisier than the Levoit Core 300S when I was trying to get to sleep. Its noise didn’t become especially intrusive until speed three, at which point a tone emerged – at top speed it began to sound like a vacuum cleaner.

From three feet away, I measured values of 25.6dB, 42.0dB and a punchy 58.8dB at the first, third and fastest fan settings. For comparison, the Core 300S managed a 20dB minimum, rising to a 54dB maximum.

With lots of powerful infrared LEDs, I expected the Molekule Air Mini+ to use a little more power than other compact purifiers. That said, at the lowest fan setting consumption was minimal, at just 6.2 watts (W). Even at full power this rose to just 39.8W – about the same as four low energy light bulbs.

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