Was The Ionic Breeze Air Purifier Just A Big Fat Fabrication That Eventually Destroyed The Sharper Image?

By Wilma Perkins

Remember all those commercials about the Ionic Breeze air purifier? They also made appearances at Radio Shack and The Sharper Image stores. Then they were gone, along with The Sharper Image, for the most part. Researching the Ionic Breeze air purifier on the net will very quickly yield two facts: the original Ionic Breeze air purifier is nearly impossible to find, and there are a bunch of folks out there that feel The Sharper Image lied about it. Yet, if you look at the reviews from the people that actually bought one, you'll see that they're generally favorable. Let's take a look at some of the claims that eventually killed the original Ionic Breeze air purifiers, and put them into perspective.

Ionic Breeze Air Purifiers Do Not Clean The Air As Well As HEPA Air Purifiers

True, the Ionic Breeze is not as effective as a True HEPA purifier, but no one ever said it was. In fact, The Sharper Image never made direct comparisons with HEPA air purifiers except in terms of maintenance. Consumer Reports says that the Ionic Breeze silent air purifier only cleaned 30% of the pollution that passed through the machine. Consider that all of the air in the room will pass through the machine multiple times. If you clean 30% of something multiple times, you eventually end up close to, though not quite 100%. So, basically, an ionic air purifier is slower than a HEPA machine at the same job. It's also cheaper to buy, run, and maintain, so it's a trade-off. Also consider that these comparisons were made against True HEPA air purifiers, not HEPA-type machines. HEPA-type air purifiers don't have any particular standard to adhere to, and True HEPA machines are extremely expensive.

The Ionic Breeze Actually Makes The Air Unhealthy

This comes from the idea that ionic air purifiers produce a dangerous amount of ozone when doing their job. This simply is not true. The confusion comes from ozone generators, which work in a fashion somewhat similar to ionic air purifiers, but produce far more ozone. In fact, Consumer Reports even said that the Ionic Breeze air purifier produces under 50ppb of ozone, which meets HEPA guidelines. For what it's worth, the original Ionic Breeze air purifier passed every HEPA guideline, except for efficiency.

The Ionic Breeze Air Purifier Caused The Sharper Image To Go Bankrupt

Although it wasn't sales figures that caused it directly, The Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy in 2008. As their once great, if finicky reputation had totally been trashed, and they were publicly traded, the prices of their stocks dropped to nothing almost overnight. True, the company had lots of debt, but they still claimed to have better than $50 million equity, without including cash on hand. This didn't convince their investors, though.

Have Ionic Air Purifiers Improved Since Then?

As the technology is quite simple and effective, there really isn't much room for improvement, even in the newest ionic air purifiers. The more fans you add, the faster and better it cleans the air, but even without fans, ionic breeze air purifiers eventually do the job. And although you may have a hard time finding the original Ionic Breeze, there are newer versions with The Sharper Image name on them (they got bought and resurrected), and also the Ionic Pro air purifier which is pretty similar to the original.

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Want to learn more about the Ionic Breeze Air Purifier, as well as the alternatives? Visit Ionic Air Purifier Info.

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