An air purifier is the best noise machine for me, much better than the white noise machines with the tinny speakers. Even the brown noise setting on those isn't nearly deep enough to let me sleep.
I bought a large soldering iron air purifier and it turns out to be great; it has a continuious speed selector, easy to replace filters, and very pleasant spectrum. I like it better than the air conditioner, which cycles on and off noisily.
Air purifier is gonna use a lot more energy than just a small speaker. The energy cost swamps everything long term
this feels like a 'dose makes the poison' scenario. you're talking about maybe $10 of difference annually if both were run continuously. and that's only if you bought an inefficient air purifier - if you elected to use, for eg, six Arctic P14 PSTs then that's maybe double to triple an already minute consumption and the difference would drop to a couple of bucks annually
An air purifier is a good addition to a kids bedroom.<p>I got one during Santa Cruz wildfires in 2020 and now the kids have a pavlovian reflex to sleep once that gets turned on.<p>Ikea makes an air-purifier table, which is a end-run around it being a useless box in the room when switched off.<p>It's fairly expensive, not as good as a purpose built one, but it blends into the average room pretty well.
Does that mean your air doesn't get filtered if you stop or decide to turn down the white noise?<p>I prefer having quiet air filters that I can run all day (based on air quality) instead of noisy ones I only use at night.
If you turn it off, sure.<p>I have one in the bedroom. On low, I barely hear it during the day (extra ambient noise from outside) but at night the white-noise is subtle but effective. That said, I don't like "loud" white noise, just a quiet hum.
YSK on low you won't be getting much air cleaning power. All air purifiers are rated based on their top fan speed.<p>Housefresh, which is a criminally underrated review channel btw, recently did a comparison of PC fans for this purpose. The Thermalright TL-14C family came out strong in the "Silent" category, with the best ultra-quiet 24/7 fan speed performance. This comes at the cost of slightly worse max speed CADR vs the venerable Arctic P14.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlz37IdCcIE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlz37IdCcIE</a>
Many air purifiers are silent on lower settings and louder on higher settings. If I want noise I turn mine up. If I want less noise I turn it down.
The Austin Air HealthMate is great as a noise machine. Very loud. It’s a HEPA filter and lasts 5 years. Never seen any other that lasts that long, but you pay for it upfront. after-market replacements are $250-300 for another 5 years.
Alrighty, don't a lot of people already do this? Sometimes I'll do both an air purifier white noise and some music or something from myNoise
I've considered an air purifier for allergy reasons, but...<p>>removes smoke and infectious particles<p>Where do people live that they need to remove such things, 18th century London?
This is approximately what it looked like near my area in mid July for a few days.<p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wildfire_smoke_Wyandotte_MI_2026.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wildfire_smoke_Wyand...</a><p>It just looks like fog, but it is smoke, and the sky has an unusual orange color. Smells and tastes like you are standing in the path of a campfire, but you can't move out of the way. It irritates your eyes and throat if you spend more than 20 mins out there. You can go inside, but if the building you are in is leaky, it will smell like smoke inside there too.<p>The actual fire was hundreds of miles away. You can try driving in any direction for hours and not be clear of the smoke. Still, compared to other areas, this is barely worth complaining about.
I use mine just to purify air for my precious LTO tape drive. My baby doesnt like dust
Anywhere in the US west of Texas and most of Canada.
>Where do people live that they need to remove such things<p>SF Bay Area during the summer fires of a few years ago
Almost anywhere now in North America or Europe during the summer.
Doesn't even need to be during the summer.<p>Wind blows smoke around. There are currently fires in northern Michigan that are affecting the air quality in Chicago, which is 350+ miles away.<p><a href="https://data.usatoday.com/fires/" rel="nofollow">https://data.usatoday.com/fires/</a>
As an allergy enjoyer there is no air too pure.<p>My allergies became generally better at all hours just from sleeping in super cleaned air.<p>Why? Reducing baseline inflammation perhapse? Maybe decreased inflammation during sleep helps too, improved breathing? idk. Whatever it is this organism seems to prefer it.<p>Even when exposed to allergens during the day the run up to sneezing is much slower or doesn't happen.