10 February

If you want to filter the air, at home or at work, a great idea even without a pandemic (particularly if you live in a city, or somewhere that uses wood fires for heating), these IKEA Starkvind purifiers are pretty astounding value for money. $200 (upright version) - $250 (table version). The even more outstanding value is the filters, only $20 each. Normally purifiers with the filtration efficiency these have cost nearly $1000, and their filters can cost hundreds. They’re HEPA 12 filters, one grade below the gold standard HEPA 13. But they have such a high single-pass efficiency, and the difference in filtration is only that between 99.95% and 99.5%, that it doesn’t matter. They’re also pretty quiet for the volume of air they shift. The table version is a terrific piece of furniture to boot.