SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: cleaning the air while pretending to be furniture

If you suffer from allergies, you’re a pet owner or you simply want to ensure a healthier, pollutant-free home, one of the best air purifiers should be at the top of your shopping list.

The SwitchBot Air Purifier Table hides its air treatment technology underneath a sleek oak-style tabletop and provides a selection of extra features that make it a little more exciting than most purifiers, like ambient lighting and wireless phone charging.

What’s more, you can add it to your smart home set-up, control it by voice and create smart schedules to turn it on or off at certain times of day or to be triggered by other smart home tech around the house like motion sensors or thermostats.

I’ve had the SwitchBot Air Purifier Table up and running in my living room for a couple of weeks now, and here’s my full review.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: price and availability

You can buy the SwitchBot Air Purifier Table now for £299.99 in the UK or $269.99 in the US, and the price is likely to be reduced on occasion. It’s available on Amazon or through the SwitchBot online store.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: design and setup

The SwitchBot Air Purifier Table is a cylindrical device that filters allergens, dust and hair from the air in your home. But unlike most bulky and obtrusive air purifiers, this one is concealed underneath a floating tabletop designed to mimic wood.

Of course, you can still see the device underneath but it’s undeniably less of an eyesore than it would be otherwise and makes the most of the space it's in. I had it tucked away next to the sofa in my living room and I didn’t feel it disrupted the aesthetics of the room too much. That’s largely because of the quality of the tabletop, despite being plastic it does look remarkably like oak.

The Air Purifier Table is a good size to replace a bedside table or living room side table. It measures 29×42×49.75cm and weighs just under 5kg, so it’s not too much hassle to move around when you need to. The size and shape of the table attachment are perfect for those locations too. There was plenty of space to put my small Alexa smart speaker, a Kindle, a drink and my smartphone.

I was impressed by how quick and easy the setup process was, for the most part. I simply took the device and the table attachment out of the box and slotted them together.

Securing the table was a little trickier. It comes with a screwdriver and screws included in the box, but it admittedly took me a few failed attempts to successfully get the screws in because there’s not much room between the top of the device and the bottom of the table. After that, all I needed to do was remove the plastic from the filter behind the pull-out plastic grate and plug it in.

You can control the air purifier using the row of buttons positioned underneath the tabletop, and there are lights to let you know which settings you’ve selected and when it’s connected to WiFi. The machine needs to be placed in such a way that the buttons are accessible.

From the control panel, you can turn it on, set a delay timer, switch between purifying modes, adjust its fan level and lock the settings.

Alternatively, you can control the air purifier remotely. There's a QR code in the instruction manual that prompts you to download the app which is available for both iOS and Android.

As well as showing air quality readings, the app allows you to change the purifier’s settings, adjust the backlight colour, turn on the child lock, disable the lights and sounds using Do Not Disturb, and more.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: performance

The SwitchBot Air Purifier Table has a decent Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) sitting at 236CFM, meaning at its highest fan speed, it can clean rooms up to 360sq. ft. SwitchBot claims it can clean a 215sq. ft. area in just 7.2 minutes and can cover 1,800sq. ft. in an hour.

Ideally, the device would be placed in a small to medium-sized space like a living room or bedroom, but it could handle larger rooms if needed. Depending on how rigorously it gets used, you’ll need to replace the filter every six to 12 months.

There's a setting for pet owners and for purifying while you’re asleep, as well as an Auto mode that switches the air purifier on when it detects changes in the air quality. For example, I made the house a little smokey from cooking and the air purifier automatically got to work cleaning up.

It removes odours while purifying the air in your house, but there’s also a small drawer for essential oils so it can disperse fragrances at the same time, which is a nice touch.

For the most part, I found the SwitchBot Air Purifier Table worked quietly, especially on the lowest fan speeds. However, when I ramped it up, it became a little annoying, particularly late at night.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: features

Aside from its core functions, I was pleasantly surprised by just how many features SwitchBot has managed to pack into the Air Purifier Table.

You can hook it up to your smart home ecosystem thanks to Matter integration. That means it can be controlled by voice using your Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri smart speakers. I didn't need to use a separate hub to set it up either, it easily connected to my Alexa app over the WiFi network.

The tabletop features a wireless 10W charging pad, it took just over two hours to charge my Google Pixel 9 smartphone from empty to 100%. I wouldn’t rely on it all the time, but for the occasional top-ups, it was really useful.

An adjustable ambient light on the underside of the table is another feature worth mentioning. You can change the brightness, switch between 10 different colours and it automatically turns off at night.

Not only can the built-in light provide atmospheric-coloured lighting, but it can also let you know the air quality in the room. Blue is Very Good, green is Good, yellow is Moderate and red is Bad. If the air quality in the room fluctuates, you'll know about it.

The app provides all sorts of interesting information to delve into. You can see graphs of how the air quality has changed over time and get a current reading from the room the device is in. Frustratingly, I found that I needed to be in the same room as the air purifier for the app to work. I tried to use it upstairs and it showed as offline.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: verdict

The SwitchBot Air Purifier Table removes pollutants like hair and dust from the air in your home and is geared toward pet owners in particular. The great thing is that it won’t look out of place thanks to the oak-like tabletop that conceals the main device. Granted, you can still see the air purifier below it but it’s much nicer-looking than some of the other options currently on the market.

To add to its effective and extensive purifying features, the SwitchBot Air Purifier Table also has extra tools including voice control, ambient lighting, wireless phone charging and an adjoining smartphone app.

SwitchBot Air Purifier Table review: alternatives to consider

If you like the idea of hiding an air purifier in other household items, take a look at the Vitesy Natede Smart air purifier. It doubles up as a plant pot and uses plant power to absorb pollutants from the air around you. Because of that, there’s no need to replace the filter, you just need to occasionally wash the ceramic photocatalytic filter. You can see real-time measurements of the air quality from a smartphone app, and it’ll automatically start purifying when it detects a drop.

If you’d rather have an all-in-one device that not only purifies but also cools and humidifies your home, we’d recommend the Dyson Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde instead. It works well in every way, and it produces almost no sound at all in doing so. It’s a top choice for anyone willing to splash out a little.