Levoit Sprout Air Purifier Review
The new Levoit Sprout Air Purifier is advertised as perfect for your child's bedroom, we put it to the test to see how it stacks up
4.5
In a nutshell
This fantastic air purifier not only performs well, it also looks nice and comes with some additional features that make it a great buy for families
Pros
- Excellent, fast performance
- Sleek design
- Built in white noise and night light
- Great app
Cons
- Expensive
- Quite loud on the higher settings
- Can be difficult to position
When I first plugged in the Levoit Sprout Air Purifier at 15:45 the air quality in my house was at 65 on the AQI (the Air Quality Index which indicates the amount of clean air indoors) and by 17:15 that number was down to 20. Given that the room its positioned in is quite large, my house has fairly poor ventilation and I had been burning a candle about an hour before I turned the Sprout on, I was impressed.
This first impression, combined with the fact that the Sprout is armed with some parent-friendly features like a night light and a built-in white noise machine made me wonder if it might be the best air purifier for families?
Why are we testing an air purifier? Air purifiers, like dehumidifiers, can help with everything from seasonal allergies to keeping the air quality appropriate for your child. With a recent poll by Parents for Future UK finding that 80% of parents believe clean air, clean waterways, and a stable climate are equally or more important for their children to inherit than financial assets like property or savings, an air purifier can be a great first step into bringing cleaner air into your home. With that in mind, is the Levoit Sprout air purifier worth buying?
Over the subsequent 2 days, as I put the Sprout to the test, I paid close attention to not just the performance but the noise levels and power consumption amongst other key features because at £270.99 it isn't a cheap piece of tech. It quickly became clear in my testing that the Sprout was a jack of all trades. The question is, is it a master of none or is this the all-in-one device you've been looking for?
How we tested the Levoit Sprout Air Purifier
We tested the Sprout air purifier across 3 days looking at a range of different factors including performance, power consumption, design and build quality and safety. Our experience testing similar products for our best tower fans list, including air purifiers from Dyson, gave us a good understanding of what we wanted to consider when testing the Sprout for families.
We also paid close attention to the device's eco-credentials, looking at the amount of plastic used in packaging as well as the overall power consumption of the device, which we were able to glean using a smart meter within a normal family home.
What was my first impression of the Levoit Sprout air purifier?
This isn't my first experience with a Levoit product. Last year I put their Smart Silent Tower Fan to the test for our best tower fans list and found myself impressed. It felt like a product packed with the kind of premium features usually reserved for expensive Dyson products but at a much more affordable price point. It is clear that Levoit have come a long way with the design and unboxing experience of their products.
Where the Smart Silent Tower Fan is more utilitarian and obvious in its design, the Sprout has a playful and premium design. This is reflected in the unboxing experience, which includes minimal packaging overall with limited use of non-recyclable plastics making for the kind of satisfying unboxing experience usually reserved for the likes of Apple. Honestly, I've tested a few Dyson air purifiers and the Sprout was easily the most premium feeling and delightful unboxing experience I've had.
This premium feel is continued in the build quality of the Sprout which is made of hardwearing matte plastic that feels up to the challenge of a family home. My wife and I have taken to referring to it as R2D2, as the design somewhat resembles a droid from Star Wars. The subtle blue accents on the display and inside of the fan component are a nice touch without being an overbearing design choice.
How easy is the Levoit Sprout air purifier to set up and use?
Setup is simple. You twist the top of the air purifier until it separates from the base revealing the included HEPA filter. You unwrap the filter and place it back into the base section and then you twist on the top, locking it in place. Then, it's just a matter of plugging it into the wall, downloading the app and you're ready to go.
All in all, setup took me around 5 minutes (and that includes time spent trying to prevent my cat from eating the plastic wrap around the filter). The app makes getting your device hooked up to your WiFi and ready to go super easy and once you've given it a name and assigned it a room (ours is called Airiel), then its good to go.
I want to shout out the VeSync app here as I've tested a lot of smart products over the past few years from a number of brands and few of them have an app that's as easy to use and that offers as much data as the VeSync app. The app is a one stop hub for all Levoit products allowing you to control any of their products remotely. The only real ding against the app is the lack of support for smart home standards like Matter or integration with Apple HomeKit.
That won't be an issue for the vast majority of people, though, and the fact that the app allows you such fine control over your air purifier more than makes up for it. You can do the obvious things like toggle the power and set the fan speed but you can also see detailed data surrounding the air quality in your home (including a graph that shows the change over time) as well as additional data about the comfort level in your home (determined by measuring the room temperature, CO2 level and humidity).
The app also allows you to control the night light and white noise functions of the Sprout and lets you set schedules to help you get the most out of the device. Overall, this is about as easy to set up and use as it gets and, beyond wider smart home integration, its hard to fault it.
How well does the Levoit Sprout air purifier perform?
We've already hinted at the answer to this one in the introduction, but the Sprout performs exceptionally well and remarkably quickly. The Sprout has 4 fan speed settings allowing for finer control over the speed of purification. In my testing, I found that at a fan speed of 2 the Sprout is able to maintain a fairly consistent air quality. When I was cooking or burning a candle, I would put the fan speed up to its maximum speed setting of 4 and found that it prevented the air quality from becoming any worse in any meaningful way.
Without getting too into the weeds of how air quality is measured, I do feel it is important to note that a lower number on the AQI means better air quality. The Air Quality Index essentially works by measuring the amount of particles within the air across a series of particle types. The fact that the Sprout was able to bring the AQI number in my house down so quickly is a testament to the performance of such a neatly designed device.
The main issues I had with the Sprout were just how loud it was on the highest settings. Anything above the fan speed of 2 is clearly audible (it registers as about the same as an extractor fan for reference) which I found quite distracting when watching TV or working and may be an issue if you're using it in a child's bedroom. However, when combined with the white noise function, this fan noise is much less noticeable.
The other issue I noted was trying to find a good place to actually put the Sprout. The instructions say that it needs around 30cm of clearance on all sides to ensure optimal performance and purification. 30cm, while not excessive, might make finding a surface to place the Sprout in your child's bedroom a bit more difficult. This is why it ended up on my kitchen island as there were very few other places I could put it that allowed for the 30cm clearance. You could position it on the floor, and there isn't anything in the instructions that suggests an ideal height, but that wasn't an option for us as our cat would have quickly made it his mortal enemy.
Does the Sprout use a lot of power?
Power consumption was also something that impressed me during my testing. I have a smart meter hooked up in my home and noticed a negligible increase in power consumption alongside other devices within my home. When the Sprout was set to a fan speed of 2 we noticed a power draw of around 0.08 pence per hour meaning it would cost me around £1.90 to run for a full 24 hours. We should point out that this number was reached using a regular house hold smart meter meaning the exact cost to run just the Sprout alone would likely be lower.
How safe is the Levoit Sprout Air Purifier to use for familes?
When we test fans here at MadeForMums, we're always conscious to see just how easy it would be for little fingers to get stuck into vents or knock them off counters. The same can be said for air purifiers like the Sprout. There are 2 vents on the Sprout. The intake holes that surround the base of the device and the vent that sits above the fan unit where the clean air comes out.
Neither have particularly wide openings that should concern parents who's children are prone to poking and prodding almost anything. The vent at the top of the device has 2 layers which prevent tiny fingers from reaching the fan inside. We'd still suggest checking it yourself and would always advise never leaving your child unsupervised with any device that includes a fan like this.
Beyond the fan covering, the Sprout includes a couple of nice features that make it particularly great for families. The app includes advice for parents alongside the data that the Sprout is able to collect from your home. For example, it is able to measure the humidity or CO2 levels in the room and offers you advice for the optimal environment for a child. You can also set smart schedules to turn on the air purifier at certain times or when the air quality hits a certain point.
Who is the Levoit Sprout Air Purifier best for?
If you're looking to create the most comfortable and clean environment in your home then the Sprout is a great pick for you. It might not be the cheapest air purifier on the market (or the quietest at high fan speeds) but it does pack in some excellent features alongside great performance. Parents who want to use the latest and greatest tech to optimise their home for their family will definitely want to add the Sprout to their setup.
Overall, this is definitely a great pick for families. The fact that it performs well and comes with multiple functions makes it great value for money when compared with comparable air purifiers on the market.
Is it worth the money?
The short answer is yes. It isn't as cheap as some of the other air purifiers on the market, but when you consider that it also includes a night light and a white noise machine as well as a range of sensors, all alongside fantastic performance, it starts to look like a bargain.
Consider buying a night light, air purifier and white noise machine separately and you'd probably come close to the cost of the Sprout, making it well worth considering. In my experience, the more functions you can find in one device the better when it comes to parenting tech.
Why should you buy an air purifier for your family?
Air purifiers like the Levoit Sprout use HEPA filters to filter out harmful particles and clean the air in your home. Air pollution and poor air quality can lead to all manner of different health conditions with a series of recent studies showing links between air pollution and both asthma and lower birth weight of babies. Running an air purifier can be a low cost way to improve the air quality in your home, providing a multitude of potential health benefits.
MadeForMums verdict:
Overall, the Levoit Sprout air purifier might be a jack of all trades but that doesn't mean its a master of none. This is a premium, sleek and sturdy air purifier/night light/white noise machine combo with exceptional performance and fantastic app control. If you can swing the extra cost, this is one Sprout you won't want to throw in the bin.