Dreo True HEPA Air Purifier review

Dreo is a home appliance brand, specialising in air care products, such as heaters, fans, compact air conditioners and more. We’re reviewing its True HEPA air purifier.

Design and appearance

Most air purifiers tend to be chunky, featureless, white boxes. Dreo has designed something very different: a neat, black cylinder.

It’s a compact appliance (25x25x38.6cm/ 9.84×9.84×15.2in). If you’re trying to imagine it, it’s about the same size as three birthday cakes stacked on top of one another. Admittedly, that would be a lot of cake but it’s a petite amount of air purifier.

It’s also very light (7.27lbs/ 3.3kg), so you can move it easily from room to room, as required.

The air inlets cover the entire lower half of the appliance, for 360° air purification. The air outlet is on top of the purifier and if you have it on turbo, there’s a powerful, fan-like blast coming out.

On either side of the outlet is the control panel, which has eight buttons and paired indicator lights.

Via the control panel, you can switch the appliance on and off; set a timer to switch it off after two, four or eight hours; choose one of three manual power settings, or alternatively press the auto mode button, which will adjust the power automatically based on the air quality level.

There’s also a turbo button to instantly get maximum power, and a sleep mode button for the quietest setting.

In terms of maintenance settings, there’s a child lock and a filter reset indicator light, which will let you know when the air filter needs changing. Dreo doesn’t provide an estimate of how long a filter will last but replacement filters are relatively pricey: $29.99 each from Dreo.  

You can’t wash the filter by hand as its activated charcoal layer needs to be replaced regularly to be effective.         

What can the True HEPA air purifier tackle?

It has an H13 True HEPA Filter, which will trap 99.97% of particles down to 0.3 microns, an ultra-fine nylon pre-filter to capture larger particles, and an activated carbon layer which will get rid of bad smells, smoke and harmful gases like VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

What this means in practice is that the Dreo True Hepa Air Purifier is a good all-rounder that will get rid of the two key categories of pollutants in your air. The first is particulate matter or particle pollution, which is all the bits of dust, dirt and soot that may come from nearby roads or any open fires you may have.

VOCs are the second category. These are gases, often dangerous ones such as formaldehyde, which are emitted by cleaning products, solvents, personal care products, paint and aerosols.

Both particulate matter and VOCs can be harmful to your health.

While we can’t verify how effective it is, in lab-style conditions. But what we can say is that on paper, it has everything you need to clean your air. It should also help with allergens such as pet dander and pollen.

Performance

The Dreo Air Purifier is easy to set up. All you need to do is turn the purifier over and twist open the lid to the filter chamber. Then remove the plastic wrapping from the filter, put it back in place, turn it over and switch the appliance on.

You’ll need to make sure that there’s enough space all around it for the purifier to pull in air, so don’t place it next to a wall. It needs a clearance space of at least 38cm/ 15 inches around it.

Once it’s on, you’ll see an air quality indicator light. Initially, it cycles through five colours before settling on the appropriate one: blue (for excellent air quality), green (good), orange (moderate) and red (poor).

Dreo’s Air Purifier has a clean air delivery rate (CADR) of 176 cubic feet per minute or 300 cubic metres per hour, and an effective range of 273 sqft or 25.4m2. This means it’s effective in smaller rooms, such as a bedroom or smaller living space.

There’s no point putting it in the corner of a huge office space and hoping that it’ll clean the air. It won’t be able to do so effectively.

Dreo claims that it can clean the air of a 300 sqft living room in 13.2 minutes, which we’re somewhat sceptical about. It would need a massive amount of airflow to do that, and equal access to all the air in the room. Instead, it’s likely just cleaning the area closest to the appliance.

Still, this could work in your favour if you’re after an air purifier to stand by your bed at night or near your desk during the day to help with allergies or hayfever. In other words, we think it would work best as a personal air purifier.

It’s also very quiet in use, with an operating volume of 20-54 dB. On its lowest setting, that’s very quiet indeed. You could have it beside your bed and it would be unlikely to disturb you.

The highest setting, however, would be too distracting for me to use while I was watching TV, for example. Having said that, I put it on max to test it and then completely tuned it out while writing this review.

Price and availability

The Dreo True HEPA air purifier is available to buy in the US. You can’t currently buy it in the UK, although it can be shipped to you. It does not need a transformer – a simple US to UK adapter will allow you to use it. 

It has an RRP of $149.99, which is very reasonable for an air purifier. The best price we can find for it at the time of writing is on Amazon, where it’s currently available for $125.99. Bear in mind that filter replacements will add to your running costs.

Verdict

Although it’s powerful for its size, this is a compact air purifier. You’ll get the best use from it in a smaller room or as a personal air purifier, to keep you comfortable while you work or sleep. It could also be handy to improve the air quality if you’re painting or decorating.

To read up on other models we’ve reviewed and to see how the Dreo measures up, have a look at our round-up of the best air purifiers we’ve tested.