BlueAir blue 3210 review: A whisper-quiet air purifier on a budget

BlueAir is one of the market leaders when it comes to air purifiers, and it specialises in devices for huge offices as well as small bedrooms.

For consumers, the brand’s ethos is applaudable. Its whisper-quiet products for the home are designed to be super effective while being extremely energy efficient at the same time. And, as well as making products that have a low impact on the environment, the brand also uses its profits to help make clean air available to children around the world.

The blue 3210 purifier, launched in March 2021, is one of the brand’s most affordable and compact devices to date. Weighing in at a mere 1.68kg, it’s light enough to be moved around using just one hand, while also being powerful enough to remove the smallest particles from the air. In fact, based on independent testing, it can remove any pollen, dust and most bacteria and viruses from the air in a 12sq m room in just 12.5 minutes.

Plus, this device uses about the same amount of power as an LED light bulb and has been given the Quiet Mark certification, which means its noise levels are so low that you can sleep right through it.

On paper, it sounds like it could be too good to be true, so we tested the device to see just how well it works in practice. As well as putting the device to the test in different rooms using different settings, we also looked for how easy it was to operate, and compared it with our experience with the Blueair healthprotect 7470i and Dyson’s pure cool me. Here’s what we found.

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Design-wise, the BlueAir blue 3210 looks simple: it’s a cylindrical appliance with a coloured base and a white plastic top.

The base features multiple layers – the outermost layer is an elasticated woven fabric cover that acts as a washable pre-filter. It’s available in five different muted shades, including Arctic trail (dark grey), winter reed (light grey), archipelago sand (pink), aurora light (green) and night waves (blue).

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Hiding behind this fabric cover is BlueAir’s HepaSilent filter, which wraps around a hollow core. It’s composed of a non-woven corrugated exterior, made from polypropylene fibres that trap pollen, viruses and other particles, and an activated coconut shell carbon core that removes bad odours.

All of the electrical components are in the white plastic top, which contains a fan, a sensor and a button to control the device. When you switch the device on, the fan draws in the air through the fabric pre-filter and the main filter before pumping it out from the top of the device.

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This pared down device is designed for bedrooms with a recommended size of up to 17sq m – given the average UK bedroom is around 15sq m, this is more than adequate for most homes.

But for a bedroom appliance, it’s quite a bit taller than you might expect at 425mm. It would look out of place, for example, on a small bedside table. That said, the low-key Scandi styling means it will happily sit in the corner of the room somewhere and blend in, and that’s where we found it was the happiest.

Compared to the Blueair healthprotect 7470i, the BlueAir blue 3210 is pretty low tech. That means there’s no app from which you can control it or monitor the air quality in your home, and you can’t set the device on a timer. And it doesn’t oscillate either, so it’s not an appliance that can double up as a fan.

Instead, the entire device is controlled using the single button located in the centre of the white plastic top. This has LED lights around it that show you which setting it’s on, and when you need to change the filter.

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The fan has three different speed settings – low, medium and high – and you can rotate through them by pressing this button. You also press this button to get the auto setting, which automatically adjusts the fan speed based on the level of pollution in the air, as determined by the built-in sensor.

The device will tell you what the air quality in like your home – there’s an indicator light that switches between polluted (red), moderate (orange) and good (blue). Obviously this doesn’t tell you how much pollution there is in your home, but you can get a vague idea.

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In terms of the filter, this device also uses BlueAir’s signature HepaSilent technology, which is slightly different from “true Hepa” filters, the standard ones seen in other air purifiers.

In true Hepa filters, the air is forced through multiple layers of material, each one trapping smaller and smaller particles, until most of the harmful particles are caught. Blueair’s HepaSilent technology features an extra step – before the air passes through the filter, it’s ionised. This means more of the charged particles are caught in the filters than the uncharged ones – this is how Blueair is able to use a less dense filter and still achieve the same results.

The BlueAir blue 3210 is really straightforward to use – it comes pre-assembled, so you just have to plug it in and press the on button and then it’ll get to work.

We loved how quiet it was. For fan speeds one and two, we could barely hear it while we were working and could happily have it on while we’re sleeping. Admittedly fan speed three, the most powerful one, was quite noisy – you certainly wouldn’t want it on while you’re watching a film.

Although it’s designed for the bedroom, we found that the BlueAir blue 3210 did a pretty decent job of removing odours from the kitchen while we were cooking as well. In fact, we found that it was just as effective as the more expensive healthprotect 7470i model in terms of making a noticeable difference, and it was quieter as well.

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However, we did notice that the sensor on the blue 3210 wasn’t as sensitive as the one on the healthprotect 7470i. If we walked past the latter with freshly applied perfume for example, it would kick into action – but this never happened with the 3210.

The one thing that we found was a bit of a let down was the process for changing the filters. The elasticated fabric cover is a bit fiddly to remove, and once you get that off, you’ll need someone else to hold onto the base (or do some clever shimmying) while you remove the filter itself. And then you have to repeat the process to get the new filter on, and to replace the fabric cover. The whole ordeal took us around 10 minutes, and is something we’d have to do once every six months.

In contrast, to change the filters on the BlueAir healthprotect 7470i, or Dyson pure cool me, we just had to open the filter chamber, pull out the existing filter and drop in a new one. As the filters just slotted into place, the process took less than a minute.

We also found that once we got the fabric cover back on, we had to readjust it a few times to get it looking pristine again. And over time, we think the elastic on the cover would loosen, which means we would need to replace it.

We found that the BlueAir blue 3210 was extremely quiet and efficient, especially in smaller spaces. But for us, its affordability is one of the strongest reasons for choosing this device over alternatives.

As well as being energy efficient and therefore cheap to run, the device itself is fairly budget-friendly for a premium air purifier. The replacement filters cost £23 each, which is significantly less than Dyson pure cool me’s version, and they’re recyclable, too. And although we foresee having to replace the fabric cover at some point, at £14 each, they won’t break the bank either.

So while you can find cheaper air purifiers with Hepa filter technology out there, you’re unlikely to find one that combines efficiency and quietness with such affordability for ongoing use.