If they are still listening, maybe suggest they update the firmware and app to create an "advanced mode" for more savvy users. Simple options like changing the activation threshold, having an "after initialization", keep running until particle count is X, would make it perfectly suitable even to your higher air quality standards. I have a smart AC which periodically cycles on the fan to test air quality and humidity instead of just relying on a thermostat and humidity sensor.
If I'm getting a purifyer it will be a Dreo, simply for them being a great company in their communications with you. If I may ask; how much energy did the purifyer use on the low setting?
You have got to be one of the only people on youtube that can make sponsored content this engaging. Really appreciate your honesty, and I like seeing your approach to data collection, testing, and troubleshooting!
For situations like that, it seems like it would be a good upsell/accessory for them to offer a remote particle counter to put in a different part of the room. Kind of like the remote sensors for smart thermostats.
Matthias does the correct kind of sponsored videos. I really appreciate his take on the products and honest feedback. Any sponsor would be lucky to work with him. I'm seriously considering purchasing a Dreo for my father for his birthday this year due to this video.
Exactly, some sponsors are afraid of Matthias, but he *always* gives credit where it's due. If you make a good product, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Props to Dreo for being so cool about the sponsorship. I'm more likely to buy their products than anyone else's now because of this video. Sure, there were some bad points, but *everything* has something that's not perfect, and these units seem to do their job really well.
If you’ve never used an air filter these are great. ru-vid.comUgkx_dppjvjF8BYEmPSDTcgCUdRsgWYLXNHN I ended up with three after starting out with one. The noise level depends on the 1-3 settings with how hard you want the machine to work. You can also upgrade the filters and get one better for pet hair and smells which is a must have in my home. I noticed the air seemed lighter and easier to breathe when running the machine for the first time. Works great every time. Highly recommended!
I have great respect for the way you do sponsored videos. I always skip the sponsored parts of any video but yours I don't mind because I know it is always honest.
Matthias, having been a testing engineer for a mobile device company AFAICT, *always* has hard data for his claims. It seems that he also always refuses to read the sponsor's script, which is a huge contributor to his air of integrity and honesty.
@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 I find those super annoying. No your VPN isn't going to magically make your internet more secure, especially now that most sites are running HTTPS (and no excuse not to with Let's Encrypt being a thing). Tom Scott does them, but he seems to try to be more honest with the claims.
I get that this is a sponsored video, but seems like the ideal solution is to use a smart plug to power the fan and use the particulate sensor as a trigger. Or simply have a 15 minute timer on the box fan power that is started manually at the same time the stove is opened. Also, I think you're onto something with the purifier placement- I'm sure they pull in air from the ceiling as well as the rest of the room, but perhaps placing the purifier at 4-5 feet off the ground is more effective at immediately catching the smoke. All good ideas for when I (hopefully) eventually get a woodstove for my house.
@@ionstorm66 Sure, and few are going to do that.... I'd love to see someone who has no skills and more money than me try to throw something like what you speak of together and use Chatgpt to program an arduino to run the thing. Just because I'm curious how far diy has been enhanced by A.I. in 2023. How much would bypassing the box fan controller and using a variable speed setup cost? That would probably fix the noise issue.
As someone who uses a box fan and furnace filter (I used to have 2 of them) I switched my living room filter to a Dreo and it was worth it. It's like 100$, but the filter is HEPA, not just MERV-9+; it's SOOOOO much quieter (I CANNOT stress how much quieter); filter replacements are roughly the same (I get 4.5" 20x20's which are about 28$ from ACE and the Dreo is 30$ and lasts longer); and it is more electrically efficient (my box fan draws ~58watts on low, and my Dreo runs ~36watts at High without Turbo). So, it's not necessarily more cost effective (it'd take decades in energy saving to pay off) but in places where you don't want a loud humming fan, you'd be hard-pressed to spend a better 100$ to keep things quiet. EDIT: If you're wondering why I still keep one of the box fans with a furnace filter instead of getting another Dreo, it's because the Dreo has a flow-rate of about ~180 CFM and my box-fan on low is 800 CFM and 2100+ on High. Coupled with the 4.5" filter, it has almost no airflow loss, so I use it as a roughing cleaner and the Dreo as a finishing cleaner because it can turn over the air in the house SO much faster. It just lives in another room far enough away from my living room/theater that it doesn't cause so much of a racket.
But most people won't, and that's fine. I would totally build my own, but my parents, for example, would rather just buy something, so it's nice to have options that work at least pretty well.
@@mr.bennett108 i did have to check The Air Quality Sensor detects PM 2.5 particles but cannot detect odors. so if it's super light particles, it won't trigger the air purifier en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_counter but also the particles have to travel over a path so the machine can detect it, if it doesn't then there is nothing there
I actually got the Dreo from the original sponsored video specifically BECAUSE I use a box fan and furnace filter (I use a giant 4.5" pleat, not the smaller 1" ones, for more airflow) and the numbers you produced were roughly the same, but the Dreo is SOOOO much quieter, it was totally worth it. And, in all honesty, even knowing their Auto mode is questionable, having it on Low is extremely cost-effective from a power consumption perspective and it REALLY does a good job at keeping my pet allergies at bey.
Matthias and sponsor videos always crack me up. They basically get free quality control with the offset of negative publicity if their product isn't up to his standards.
"They don't wanna let go, at all." Would have been nice to hear what your parents had to say about the differences. Did they just really enjoy not having to deal with the box fan or did they notice a difference?
@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 yeah, seems pretty convenient just to let it run on low forever and be happy with cleaner air all the time. It would be neat to make the “auto” feature better since it’s controllable over wifi, by giving it device commands informed by your sensors and thresholds. I imagine the implementation would be a bit more difficult than an IFTTT integration though lol
This is still why I love your sponsored videos. Honest, interesting, and genuinely useful. Plus the fact that a company is willing to let you test their stuff and even publish when the results aren't as expected goes much further towards my view of them than the fact that they paid someone to show their thing. Also for Dreo, since you've already got a particulate sensor (of some sort) onboard and an app, adding an option to adjust the sensitivity for nerds like us would be awesome.
I have the first Dreo you reviewed, and it sits quietly and patiently in the kitchen, waiting for us to cook. When frying food, it goes on red alert, and the fan goes on high until the smoke is cleared out. It notices the smoke before we do, sometimes we're surprised when it kicks on.
Think it's an effective solution vs piping the vent fan outside the house? Venting my kitchen vent to the outside is on my todo list but I'll probably never get to it.
@@chrisE815 are you going to do the ductwork/cut the hole/install the vent cover yourself, or are you going to pay somebody to do it? If you're a handy guy, you're better off just getting that job over with, it will cost less in materials than a quality air purifier, and it will do a better job of isolating grease particles and smoke from cooking. If you're planning on hiring a contractor to do it, and you won't be ready with the money for a long time, then I guess it makes sense to buy an air purifier. PS: this is a total bodge, but you could always put a filter over the output of your range hood. The fan should be able to generate enough static pressure to effectively pass air through a filter and it costs a whole lot less than either of the above options. It would get greasy and you'd need to change it, but the same is true of the filter in the air purifier.
@@Bob_Adkins oh okay. Two questions: 1. Where do you live? Your comment really made me curious :) 2. When you say that the "hood doesn't get it all", do you mean that the performance of the hood is inadequate? Because I would say the hood doesn't have to remove 100% of the fumes (just like the air purifier doesn't remove 100%) just enough to no longer be a concern.
That's really interesting information, and it looks to me like the Dreo line is a good one. I have a woodstove in the garage, and one at the camp. I find that it really helps to minimize the smoke coming into the room if I just crack the door/damper/air inlet to get the draft going a bit more, then slowly open the door a couple of minutes later.
Playing around with my particle monitor I noticed just how much drafts and interior design / location of the sensor affect the measurements. It would make sense to purposefully create airflow next to the sensor to get different readings. Moreover since you breath in the particles, it would be interesting to see how much a draft that is compared to what breathing creates affects readings. I think with your setup even a blank fan without a filter would cause different readings simply due to the way it redistributed the particles.
I ended up buying one of these during one of the holiday sales, and yeah it works really well. I've had it on for I think 2 or 3 months, and the filter is still reporting over 75% life remaining (mind you we don't do much cooking or have a fireplace kicking up a lot of smoke, but we are rearranging furniture, which is kicking up a lot of dust). I've noticed my wife sneezing less overall, so it must be doing something!
Oh and I put one of the little ones in the bedroom on a very low setting. My only complaint about the little one is the air-quality LED never goes out. It does get dim in Night mode, but not off, and it's an obnoxious blue LED (Alec knows what I'm talking about). A little blue tape wadded in the decorative "fins" or "ribs" in the plastic casing, and no longer an issue. Again, really helps to knock down the dust and pet dander.
A tip that may help with significantly reducing smoke when refueling is to shut down the vents that supply air to the fire just before slowly opening the door, then the air enters only through the door and up the chimney. How well the vents will close will differ on the various makes of stove. This can also apply when lighting the fire, and as soon as the door is shut, open the relevant vents.
Hi Matthias! Like others have mentioned; the honesty in the sponsored video is very refreshing! I wanted to give you my thoughts on the wood stove; I also had one growing up and there is likely a draft issue with the home/chimney system. When the draft is correct, flue gas never enters the home. The home may be sealed too tightly or has other exhaust fans on that are lowering the pressure in the home and competing with the chimney. A tightly sealed home can also experience pressure differences when the wind blows across the structure. Adding a fresh air makeup into the HVAC system (or just slightly cracking two windows on opposite sides of the home) will help address these. The other thing to look at would be the chimney itself. As part of the operating process make sure the flue damper is always fully opened before the door is opened. The chimney may need cleaned with chimney brush to remove soot and improve flow. If the issue remains, adding additional pipe to the top of the chimney to make it taller will also improve the draft. Where you already have the particle detector and logger, just add a inH2O range differential pressure sensor between in the home and the outside and you have the makings of a wood stove draft RU-vid video ;-)
The problem with smoke roll out in newer stoves is very common. I have had both a Quadrafire and a Lopi that both do it. The Lopi is a bit better because it is equipped with a by pass damper, but it isn't totally effective because the bypass opening is too small.
I picked up one of the DREO filters after your video aired last year, and I absolutely love it. Will be taking a closer look at the new model as well. Thanks Matthias!
I had to go back to your previous review to see the internals of the Dreo. I’m in the market for a good purifier and I think I just found one. Thanks for the timely review.
I meant to get one after your original video but it slipped my mind. Now I'm glad it did. I just bought this new larger unit. Thanks for the interesting review.
I'm not sure what to call the sense of sadness I get when I see the graphics plots with all those pixels instead of hash marks on a terminal. 😔 Great video and thorough analysis, as always. Thanks for the work!
I like your diagnostics. I figured the Dreo may have a wood stove door sensor to turn on and run for 5 minutes (minimum time). I know you could rig one up. I had an Oreck with carpet floors and dogs running around to help with air clean up. You had to take it apart and wash the static chamber out periodically but it lasted for a few years. It started popping and scared the dogs. We gave up on it. That's before all the monitoring but it was better than my dad cigarette smoke as a kid and the layer of smoke. As a kid, you would play with making the swirls. Little did we know. LOL. Keep the vids coming.
I bought the smaller Dreo purifier after your last video. Put it next to the 3d printer and it never came on once in automatic mode, even when printing ABS. The wood stove set it off a couple times as well as the cnc laser engraver, running without any fume extraction. Overall, it's been good.
I enjoy the product reviews. I've been subscribed to your main change for years. I know you're detailed and trust your opinion on things. I'd love to see more videos about IoT devices you like, or more cool stuff with the Raspberry Pi's. Keep up the great content. One of these days I'll get around to building the router table I bought plans for from you lol.
Is there some sort of particulate sensing switch could put on outlet? Or better yet one that has a wireless sensors you could place by common culprits like above fireplace 🤔
It seems they need a setting for the sensor. Given your setup, I suspect you could keep your particle sensor and use that to turn the whole unit on and off, saving you even more power (at the expense of complexity). Also, it would have been interesting to see what the graphs looked like if you keep it on all the time, but on the floor.
I live down by Saint John. Our old wood stove would release a bunch of smoke when you opened the door but we bought a new one two years ago. The new one is a modern design that doesn't seem to release much *visible* particulate like the old one did. I added a circulation fan this past fall and it's already full of dust and pet hairs so I'm thinking about adding a filter to it.
Interesting test. We have a top loading wood stove in the basement. This may be something to check out. If we decide to go that route probably leave it on constantly.
Makes sense. For me, at least, the most practical thing would be to leave it on set to low, anyway. I've never had very good luck with self regulating appliances other than the most basic thermostat type.
I always like how you do a sponsored video no crap just the facts. We have two wood stoves in the house one heating the other for cooking hot water and under floor heating. House can get a tad smokey, got a Dyson air purifier two years ago does a brilliant job we noticed the air quality in winter was alot better and the fine dust particles that would build up on things. My asthma and allergies are alot better. Wish I'd got one earlier
I bought a Dreo from the last time you reviewed them, running 24/7 on automatic. Smoked a pork butt a couple days ago, a couple feet from the slider (freezing weather!), with the Dreo just on the inside of the slider. Every time I opened the slider, the Dreo kicked in on high shortly after. First time took me as a complete surprise, since normally it's so quiet you don't remember it's running. Spent a moment trying to pinpoint the sound (laptop fan on high? Weird, I'm not doing anything intensive on it), until I remembered the Dreo. Perhaps the air swirling from freezing air to room temp mixed it enough that the sensor caught enough smoke to turn it on high, despite it being on the floor. It would be nice if there was a dial to adjust how sensitive "automatic" mode is. Overall, been very happy with the Dreo for "public" space air filter. I still use a box fan + 20x20 furnace filter taped on back for my bedroom as the cheap but not exactly beautiful alternative.
Interesting. Maybe in future versions they will add to the app a feature to integrate remote particulate sensors. Maybe there's a way to use your particle sensor to turn on the air purifier and vary the speed based on the air quality.
I purchased an air purifier about a month ago and found the following. We have a cold mist humidifier that we use during the winter and the purifier is picking up a fine dust that is produced from the mist. We have a well and know that the mineral content is in our water. So conclusion is that unless we get a water softener we will continue to fight this mineral dust. My purifier is a different brand but very similar in shape and also has an app.
I would love to see an energy consumption comparison if you triggered the box fan using the particulate sensor and smart outlet. This purifier just seems to be way more efficient at moving air than the box fan.
I have the smaller unit and my experience with auto mode has been much the same: it almost never turns on. It seems like with the sensor inside the unit, there just isn’t enough airflow for particles to get in to be sensed. Either turning on low periodically to suck air over the sensor or a remote probe would make auto more useful. In the end, I did the same as Matthias and left it on low.
Matthias, you're such a neet guy (engineer-scientist). You just can't help yourself. Awesome! I burn wood here too, so thanks for a cool and meaningful video (err, I mean hot, right?).
Would be interesting to test the difference between running on low 24/7 near the source of the smoke or other particles vs running on high 24/7 in another room where the sound isn't an issue.
Great video, keep up the great work. If the fan “knocks” down the particles as good as the Dreo, and it’s too loud to keep it on, is it worth building a trigger switch/sensor to turn it on automatically? I’m sure you would know how to do that and is it worth the effort? I can see myself buying such a switch so I can turn on any fan, or maybe my HVAC fan.
It might be interesting to see how running a indoor air purifier impacts the performance of a furnace filter i.e. longevity of said filter and effectiveness.
Yes, its presently on the floor cause I took the shelf home to improve it, but I'm not sure if the shelf is even better than the floor if its always running.
Try opening the stove much more slowly and gently rather than ripping it open like a kid at xmas - that should give the stove time to suck up the smoke rather than rapidly disupting the airflow.
I have a different brand, and keep it running low, and if particle count hits certain limits, it ramps up. The issue with off to auto is you need to get the smoke to it's sensors.
I bought one of those cylinder dreos last year and quickly came to the conclusion that I may as well just leave it on medium 24/7 since it's quiet enough for me, which means the particle counter is kind of a wasted function. The only weird thing I noticed was once every couple months it will turn itself to night time ultra quiet mode which is weird
If the part of the house that's being heated a different way isn't fully separated, it would be good to measure a proxy for that and try to remove that noise from the data.
I have a similar device, and I found out that it just creates this gulf-stream around itself, sucking in the air it just cleaned in and believing that everything is fine now. I eventually put it on a timed switch.
its important that it can shoot a jet of air away from itself. Maybe put it on an inclined platform so it shoots the air more towards the middle of the room instead of straight up in its corner?
@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 Yeah!, it works fine, but it also pressurised its own case with purified air - it was just not getting enough dirty air to its sensor.
I have a Philips 2000i series air purifier at floor level, 3 metres from the log burner, and it seems to be more effective than the one that you are using. It detects increased pollution from my log burner quickly. But not only the log stove; when stir-frying on a very hot wok in the kitchen next door, the Philips goes crazy. It is even triggered quickly when I blow out a couple of candles in the living room. So maybe try a different air purifier.
So what you really want, unless you want to trust a sensor system, is a quiet fan and a good filter. A fairly low-flow fan that's low-power and runs constantly will often get the job done, in my experience. Some air purifiers are worth their cost, and with some you can do better cheaper, or even DIY.
woah electric baseboard in CA? We had hot water ones in Illinois and they had to work hard ... our first apartment in TN had electric and they just barely kept up while keeping that meter spinning. No wonder the stove is used
To be fair, it did seem to work on constant low.... And you say your in laws don't want to let it go, so besides your instrumentation, we could probably conclude they are noticing a positive difference in the air quality.....
Does the dreo provide data from its particle sensor? If it doesn’t match the sensor you had over the closet, would that explain why the dreo didn’t turn on when expected? Also what is ideal height for an air purifier? Most I’ve seen are on the floor but based on this video that is not ideal for some scenarios.
I have first xiaomi air purifier for ~7 years. It can detect frying something in a kitchen 10m away and behind a closed door with ~5 minutes lag. (it goes just to ~30-40% power use for 10 minutes) Also it use very low power, 3-7W in low/mid settings. It rarely go to High 28W power.
Interesting video! I own a proairtech zx 9000 air purifier and noticed it doesn't respond at all to fire smoke, like when easter eve fires are lit in Germany the air quality gets so poor my lungs starts to weeze and burn. The thing just sits there like nothings wrong. Then when I open a beer for a nice quiet drink it spins up all the to the max as if to say, no way I'll let you enjoy that beer! It responds to alcohol in the air. Even if I use deoderant in the shower 2 closed doors away it spins up as if to say, even with deodorant, you stink! So yeah leaving it on at low level all the time is the way to go. It has saved me from hayfever and other nasty pollutants so I'm happy with it despite being picky what's in the air.
I have allergies, i have boxfan filters and a hepa filter that are on all the time. For this, have a switch attached to the door and have it turn on the filter to a 10-20 minute session.
Me: "Smoke rises, this isn't going to work!!!" Me @3:35 "Yeah, you onto it!" I realise it's a sponsored video, but it shows how impractical the standard air purifier is for household wood fires. It would be nice to see how the unit would work with urban/city environmental particulates.
