IKEA UPPÅTVIND Air Purifier review: "room size really matters with this one"

RRP at time of testing: £29 | Check price at IKEA

My verdict

I probably didn’t give the IKEA UPPÅTVIND the fairest first assignment. IKEA says this dinky little air purifier is optimised for rooms of 7m². Instead of listening to that guidance, I instead put it in our large open-plan kitchen, dining and living space, which is where the four of us spend most of our time and where two little white dogs drift about leaving the odd hair behind, despite their supposedly “hypoallergenic” credentials. Our youngest pup also adds saliva to the mix, because apparently we can’t just have nice things.

So yes, I may have set it up to fail. But family life rarely happens in the perfect room, with the door shut, the window closed and no one cooking pasta five metres away.

At £29, with replacement filters costing £3, the UPPÅTVIND is the sort of IKEA product that makes you pause and think, “Fine, worth a go.” It’s compact, portable and pleasingly unfussy, with three fan speeds and an EPA12 particle filter designed to filter small airborne particles such as PM2.5, dust and pollen.

The question is whether it can hold its own in a real family home, or whether it’s one of those well-intentioned gadgets that takes up a plug socket for three weeks before migrating to the cupboard of abandoned appliances.

The packaging is distinctly IKEA - as is the design of the air purifier, to be fair

For me, the answer is fairly simple. The IKEA UPPÅTVIND is best thought of as a budget air purifier for a small room, not a machine that can clean the whole downstairs while you make tea, referee sibling squabbles and step over the dog.

If you want something inexpensive for a bedroom, child’s room, desk area or compact home office, I can see the appeal. It’s small, neat, cheap to run and easy to move. But if you’re hoping it will make a noticeable difference in a large open-plan living space, especially one with pets, cooking smells and people constantly wandering through it, I’d temper expectations.

In our kitchen, dining and lounge area, it didn’t feel quite strong enough for the job. That doesn’t make it a bad buy. It just means that room size really matters with this one.

How I tested the IKEA UPPÅTVIND air purifier

I tested the IKEA UPPÅTVIND in our main family living space for over a month: a large open-plan kitchen, dining and lounge area. It’s the room we use most as a family of four, with two working parents, two children and two little white dogs.

This was not a small, sealed bedroom with the door shut and the windows closed. It was a busy, lived-in, multipurpose space with cooking, pets, children and general family clutter all happening around it. That’s important because it gave the UPPÅTVIND a much bigger challenge than IKEA recommends.

I looked at how well it fitted into daily family life, whether it felt powerful enough for the room, whether the compact design made it easy to live with and whether it felt like good value despite its limitations.

IKEA UPPÅTVIND air purifier: what’s in the box?

The UPPÅTVIND comes with the purifier itself and an included EPA12 particle filter. It’s designed to be used with IKEA’s UPPÅTVIND replacement filter for particle removal, rather than a washable filter. The pre-filter can be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner, but the particle filter needs replacing when dirty.

There’s no remote control, no app, no smart-home pairing and no screen flashing up numbers that make you feel faintly guilty about frying onions. For some people, that will be a drawback. For others, especially anyone tired of every household object wanting WiFi access and a password, it will be a relief.

Setup is simple and straightforward, which is to be expected with IKEA

First impressions of the IKEA UPPÅTVIND air purifier

The UPPÅTVIND looks exactly as you’d expect a small IKEA air purifier to look: simple, white, compact and inoffensive. It has a built-in handle at the top, a textured front panel and a shape that’s a little speaker-like. 

It can stand upright on a table or lie flat on a shelf, so it’s easy to tuck into a corner. It’s not glamorous, but it isn’t ugly either, which matters more than it should when something is going to sit in plain sight.

Size is the real selling point here. At 28cm tall, 22.5cm wide and 12.5cm deep, it’s small enough for a bedside table, shelf, desk or corner of a child’s room. In a large open-plan living space, however, that compact size is also a clue. It doesn’t look like it’s going to take on the whole downstairs of a family home, and in our case, it didn’t.

Read next: Best dehumidifiers

How easy is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND to use?

Very easy. This is one of its biggest strengths. There are three fan speeds and that’s largely your lot. You choose how hard you want it to work, balance that against the noise level and leave it alone. There’s also an LED indicator to show when the filter needs checking or replacing.

There’s no auto mode, so the purifier won’t sense changes in air quality and adjust itself. There’s no air quality display either, so you don’t get the satisfying little moment of watching numbers drop after switching it on. You have to judge it more by feel, dust levels and whether the room seems fresher over time.

For a £29 purifier, I don’t think that’s unreasonable. It does mean it suits people who want basic particle filtration in a small space, not data-led reassurance or lots of settings to fiddle with.

Ever the detailed instructions from IKEA

IKEA UPPÅTVIND performance: best for small rooms, not big family spaces

Here’s the crucial bit: the IKEA UPPÅTVIND is designed for rooms of 7m². Our open-plan kitchen, dining and living area is much bigger than that. It’s also the busiest room in the house, so it had a lot of air to work through and a lot of family life to contend with.

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t find it as strong as we needed for that space.

That’s not really a shock. I wouldn’t expect a purifier this size and price to transform a kitchen-diner-lounge, especially one with pets and constant family traffic. For that kind of room, I’d look for a larger purifier with a higher clean air delivery rate, a bigger recommended room size and ideally an air quality sensor - like the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool.

Where I think the UPPÅTVIND makes more sense is in a contained room. Whether that’s a small bedroom, home office, a box room or a child’s room. Somewhere with four walls, a door and a realistic amount of air for a compact purifier to work through.

In that setting, the combination of low price, small footprint and cheap replacement filters becomes much more persuasive.

Related: Best portable air conditioner

Does the IKEA UPPÅTVIND help with pet hair?

This is where expectations need managing. An air purifier is not a substitute for vacuuming, brushing the dogs or accepting that small white hairs will somehow appear on black trousers seconds before you leave the house.

The UPPÅTVIND is designed to filter small airborne particles such as dust and pollen. It is not designed to hoover hair off the floor or magically erase the reality of living with pets.

With our two small white dogs, it didn’t feel powerful enough in the main living space to make a dramatic difference. Again, room size matters. In a smaller room where pet bedding sits, or beside a desk where dust and fine hair gather, I can see it being more useful.

It's a small air purifier, and could be easily placed on a table, shelf or in the corner of a room

Is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND noisy?

IKEA lists the noise level as 31dB on the lowest fan speed and 55dB on the highest. In real-life terms, that puts it in the “manageable on low, more noticeable on high” category.

As ever with fan noise, tolerance varies. Some people find a low hum soothing. Others can hear a phone charger whining from two rooms away and will not be calmed by anything with moving air.

The lowest setting is the one I’d use overnight in a bedroom or while working. The higher settings are more likely to suit daytime use, especially if you’re trying to shift air more quickly.

What I wouldn’t call it is silent. Very few air purifiers with a fan are. Anyone promising complete silence is usually selling you wishful thinking or a very expensive ornament.

The IKEA UPPÅTVIND: does it remove smells?

I’d be cautious here. The UPPÅTVIND has an EPA12 particle filter and IKEA lists it as a purifier for particle removal. It does not list an activated carbon filter on the UK product page.

That means I wouldn’t buy it mainly for cooking smells, damp smells, dog smells or the lingering fug of last night’s fish fingers. It may help filter particles, but odour removal is a different job and usually needs different filtration.

Given we tested it in an open-plan space that included a kitchen, this is another reason it felt outmatched. A larger purifier with carbon filtration would be a more sensible choice for a kitchen-diner or living area where smells are part of the problem - there are some options featured in our best air purifiers guide. 

Checking and replacing the filter is easy enough via the latched cover

Is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND cheap to run?

Yes, and this is one of its biggest wins. IKEA lists the power consumption as 2.4W on the lowest fan speed and 8W on the highest, which is very low. Replacement filters cost £3, which is almost startlingly reasonable in a category where replacement filters can sometimes cost more than the original appliance.

IKEA recommends checking the filter regularly and replacing the particle filter after a maximum of six months. Even if you replaced it twice a year, that’s still only £6 in filters annually at current pricing.

Who is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND best for?

The UPPÅTVIND is best for people who want a cheap, compact air purifier for a small, contained space.

It makes most sense for small bedrooms, box rooms, compact home offices, bedside tables, student rooms, nursery-sized rooms, dusty corners and renters who want something portable. It’s also a sensible option for anyone trying an air purifier for the first time and not wanting to spend hundreds.

The controls are basic, with the light glowing brighter for each option

Who should avoid the IKEA UPPÅTVIND air purifier?

It makes less sense for large living rooms, open-plan kitchen-diners, whole-house purification, strong odours, smart features or live air quality data. It’s also not the machine I’d choose for a busy pet household expecting one small unit to tackle the main family room.

For our large open-plan living space, it wasn’t quite enough. For a smaller room, I’d be much more optimistic.

Is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND good value for money?

Yes, with a fairly large asterisk. At £29, it’s very good value if you use it as intended. The purifier itself is cheap, replacement filters are £3 and energy use is low. It’s also small enough to move around easily, so you could use it in a bedroom overnight and a home office during the day.

But value depends on expectations. If you buy it hoping it will behave like a much larger, smarter, more powerful purifier, you’ll be disappointed. It doesn’t have the muscle for a big open-plan family space and it doesn’t have the features you get on pricier models.

This is not the purifier I’d choose for our main living area. It is one I’d consider for a small bedroom or office, where the job is more realistic.

Comparing air purifiers: IKEA vs Dyson vs Coway

Final verdict: is the IKEA UPPÅTVIND worth buying?

The IKEA UPPÅTVIND is worth buying if you understand exactly what it is: a very affordable, small-room air purifier that filters fine airborne particles and keeps things simple.

It is not powerful enough for a large open-plan living space like ours. With a kitchen, dining area, lounge, four family members and two little dogs in the mix, it felt like too much room and too much daily life for such a compact machine. That’s not a damning verdict. It’s just the reality of using a small purifier in a big space.

We've placed it by our dog's crate to help minimise pet dander in the air

For bedrooms, box rooms, home offices and other compact areas, the UPPÅTVIND is far more convincing. It’s cheap to buy, cheap to maintain and easy to live with. It doesn’t ask much of you, which is always welcome in a house already full of things asking to be charged, cleaned, updated or fed.

Would I buy it as the main air purifier for a family living room? No. Would I buy it for a small bedroom, especially at £29? Quite possibly.

Just don’t expect miracles. Expect a neat little IKEA box that does a small job in a small room, and you’ll be much less likely to feel short-changed.

About the author

Rebecca Roberts is a Senior Content Editor hailing from Leeds. Here at Mumsnet, she aims to bring parents content that’s designed to make life easier. As a mum of two herself, she knows all too well just how much things can cost these days. From mattresses and bedding to kitchen gadgets and beauty tech - she's on a mission to find and test the products that are designed to make life that little bit easier for parents (and won't break the bank).

Beyond her role as an editor here at Mumsnet, Rebecca can be found balancing life as a working mum of two young kids and when she’s not at her desk, you’ll likely find her at a school PTA meeting, in a nearby coffee shop, or walking her two dogs up and down country lanes.

About Mumsnet reviews

All Mumsnet product reviews are written by real parents after weeks of hands-on testing. We never accept payment for coverage, and our verdicts are independent and honest. We may earn a small commission through affiliate links, which helps fund our work - but it never influences our opinions.

All prices are correct at the time of writing.

Read next:

• Best fans for bedrooms

• Best heated clothes airers

• Best quiet dehumidifiers