Briiv smart air purifier review: specs, performance, cost

Briiv air purifier

Briiv may look like a terrarium, but this glass and moss enclosure is a smart air purifier that helps clean your air using natural materials.

We've covered our fair share of air purifiers here at AppleInsider. Unfortunately, many of them adopt all too similar appearances.

They're usually plastic or metal cylinders that pull air in from the bottom, through the filter, and out of their sides. They don't ever look particularly chic, and the amount of waste they create isn't ideal either.

Briiv uses many eco-friendly materials to develop its unique appearance that will appeal to anyone who wants clean air without a large plastic appliance.

The top uses non-hardened glass to house the first two layers of the filter. When it arrives at your doorstep, the moss is contained in a burlap sack that you remove and insert above the coconut fiber.

This whole top layer sits above the final stage of the filter media. A fan pulls the air through the top layers and expels it out the sides and bottom.

The moss is a vibrant green color, bringing warmth to these otherwise cold appliances. It also contrasts well against the brown and black body of the purifier.

All of that sits on a plastic base. A black hemp fabric wrapped around the outside of this base still gives it a more natural look than pure plastic.

On the bottom is a small status light so you can tell when the device is active without using the companion app.

To control the Briiv, you can touch the front surface. The hemp fiber wrap hides a series of status lights and controls.

Tap the plus button to increase the fan speed or the minus button to decrease it. If you tap "1," you start a one-hour boost mode.

The whole thing runs on a 5V USB power supply around the back. Frustratingly, this uses outdated micro USB.

It isn't like you'll need to change the cord, and one is included in the box, but it's unacceptable to see this port shape persist.

It makes sense for an air purifier brand to have some altruistic mission to help the environment. So not only are you cleaning the air in your home, but you're bettering the planet by reducing waste and choosing eco-friendly products.

Briiv says 90 percent of its components are of natural materials, 78 percent of the filter media is natural, and 100 percent of the product is biodegradable when it's reached its end of life.

These eco-friendly materials are functional as well as good-looking. The first layer of the filter is the moss that stops particles up to PM10.

PM10 encompasses pet dander, pollen, and other larger particles. Then the air passes through the coconut fiber filter, where PM5.0 is removed, such as dirt, dust, and smoke.

Finally, the air passes through an accordion-folded filter that uses a silk nanofiber matrix and activated carbon to remove PM2.5 particles and VOCs, respectively.

The glass is reusable, and even the plastic base was molded from sustainable elephant glass versus petroleum products.

There are no adhesives, and the company also uses cork versus rubber throughout the construction.

Between the filter and the device itself, Briiv has seemingly thought of everything.

You can control Briiv's fan from the device or via the companion mobile app. Briiv connects via Wi-Fi to give you control from anywhere.

The onboarding of the Briiv filter wasn't great and felt tedious and dated. You first connect to the device's own Wi-Fi network before entering your network's credentials.

A more fluid experience that smart home accessories use is quick connecting via Bluetooth and using that to convey the Wi-Fi SSID and password.

Once you get into the app, you can adjust the fan speed, turn on boost mode, and create a schedule.

Where Briiv falls short is with integrations. In that, it has none.

There isn't support for Apple HomeKit or an on-device sensor to measure the room's air quality.

Sometimes these air quality sensors aren't super accurate as the air is moving around them, but something would be better than nothing.

Our preferred setup is to combine a HomeKit air quality monitor with a smart plug and automate the purifier based on the room's measurements. We can also place the sensor at an optimal distance from the Briiv purifier.

We should note that when on level one, the purifier is near-silent though it gets loud when you max it out. So we can easily sleep at level one, but level four is more like a white noise machine.

Testing an air purifier isn't easy. They can require high-end, specialized equipment and labs that we don't have in our testing studio.

We can do other tests that aren't quite as scientific but still telling. For example, we can put it in the kitchen while cooking to see how it dissipates smoke from searing steak.

When using an air quality monitor, we can watch the room over time to see if the air purifier is making a difference. In both of those circumstances, the Briiv performed well.

Smoke gets cleared out effectively, at least as effective as our large, off-the-shelf purifier. And after monitoring a room for a week with and without the Briiv, we saw a much better average air quality when the air purifier was active.

We love the look of the Briiv, plus it seems to adequately clean our air, making this a winner in our book. The only downside is that it isn't cheap and costs more than your average air purifier.

But that choice will come to the consumer, whether they want a plastic box in the corner or prefer a piece of eco-friendly art to clean their home.

Find the Briiv air purifier on the company's website for $350 in the US.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Andrew O'Hara has spent the last eight years embedded in all aspects of the digital space from leading digital marketing teams to front-end web development and design. He started producing vid...