Review: Sharp Smart Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier with True HEPA + Humidifier for Large Rooms (KCP70UW)

While the entire name is a mouthful, the Sharp Smart Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier with True HEPA + Humidifier for Large Rooms (model KCP70UW) more than delivers on the company’s motto of “Simply Better Living” by providing a quiet, effective air purifying and humidifying experience for your home.

Features

Standing tall at 28.6 inches, the Energy Star Rated Sharp Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier presents itself as a classy, unassuming tower that compliments your room’s decor and features a triple filtration system to help clean the air in your home effectively. The three-filter system starts with a washable, microscreen pre-filter that traps dust and other large airborne particles. Then an activated carbon deodorizing filter helps trap and reduce common household odors. Finally, the True HEPA filter effectively captures 99.97% of particles 0.3 microns and larger from the air that passes through the filter.

The KCP70UW will filter the air in the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) suggested room size of 396 sq. ft. at 4.8 air changes per hour and is effective in rooms up to 1,913 sq. ft. at one air change per hour. The True HEPA Filter and Active Carbon Deodorizing Filter have up to a two-year filter life. Additionally, this Sharp Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier includes a humidifier to help make the air in your home more comfortable.

The Sharp KCP70UW smart air purifier is AHAM Verifide Tested to provide a Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR). CADR indicates the volume of filtered air an air cleaner delivers, with separate scores for tobacco smoke, pollen, and dust. The higher the CADR number for each pollutant, the faster the unit filters the air. The KCP70UW’s scores are excellent with its rating for smoke at 255, dust at 260, and pollen at 259.

This Plasmacluster 7000 Series Smart Air Purifier uses Sharp’s original sanitizing technology that purifies the air by emitting positive and negative ions. Plasmacluster Ion (PCI) technology deactivates suspended airborne mold, viruses, dust mite allergens, and bacteria. It also attacks a wide range of odors including pet, cooking, garbage, and cigarette smoke. Fortunately, the Plasmacluster Ion device does not produce any ozone, unlike ionizers used in air purifiers which produce Ozone as a by-product.

This air purifier has three fan settings, Low, Med, and Max with an Auto fan setting controlled by sensors that also monitor dust, odor, and light. This unit runs quietly Running quietly, noise levels have been measured at 47 dBA (Max) and 21 dBA (Low). Beyond controlling the Sharp Air Purifier with the control panel or app, it is compatible with Amazon Echo and Google Assistant to allow voice control.

Sharp Air App

Once connected to the Sharp Air app, you can monitor the temperature and humidity and see the air quality rating and what fan speed you have the unit set at. You can also turn the purifier on or off from the main screen.

Selecting the purifier takes you to a more detailed interface and control menu. The controls allow you to adjust the fan speed, select a pollen setting that helps remove dust and pollen quickly by increasing the sensitivity of the sensor, and reduce the fan noise even more with a sleep mode and an express clean mode that purifies the air quickly by maximizing airflow.

One Sharp Air app feature we really like is the weekly scheduler. This feature allowed us to select a specific time and day of the week to have the unit powered on or off and to select a fan setting and/or the pollen and sleep modes. Additionally, the app is where you can set the LED brightness to off, dim, or auto. You can even engage a child lock to keep your little ones from messing with the purifier controls.

If you dig deeper into the app options you’ll discover you can monitor the filter replacement status, complete with reordering shortcuts, and location and naming controls to make it easier to identify specific devices in the app if you are connected to multiple Sharp Air units. You can also choose to be connected to the Sharp Cloud which, when enabled, pulls from your device’s usage history to adjust the sensor sensitivity settings of the auto mode over time. Sharp says this will help optimize the air purifier’s performance.

For data geeks, or if you’re just curious about how well the purifier is working, the Air Quality Information History function gathers all the crunchy data about purified air volume and the daily performance of the Sharp Smart Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier from the past week, including Cleanliness Level, Temperature/Humidity tracking and odor and dust purification. Having this information at your fingertips can help connect the dots on days and times that are needing more air purification than others, i.e. if there are flareups of dust when the kids come home from school, or when the whole family is home versus when everything is calmed down in the middle of the night.

Testing Experience

We had the opportunity to test out the KCP80UW over the past few months and we’re pleased with how well this Sharp Air Purifier works. Our main testing area was a master bedroom, as we wanted to see if it would disturb our sleep with noisy fans or glaring lights. We’re happy to report that the three-speed fan never woke us or made it difficult to get to sleep, and, thanks to the adjustable light settings, there weren’t any glaring lights to keep us awake – I’m looking at you, Xfinity cable box.

Setting up the air purifier was extremely easy, there was no assembly required beyond removing packaging material from the unit and filters. The six-foot cord made it easy to place it where we needed it without having to resort to an extension cord as well. Having tested a plethora of smart devices over the past decade, many that were a pain to connect and use with their various apps, we steeled ourselves for a lengthy or difficult app experience and we were pleasantly surprised at how painless it was to connect the KCP80UW to the Sharp Air app and get started. That’s a win in our books.

The controls are easy to read and use, and moving the unit from room to room isn’t too challenging, but we did notice it is harder to roll on carpeted surfaces – much like any wheel on carpet, so we feel this isn’t a deal breaker. We are an Alexa household, and using the instructions for adding the Sharp skill to our Alexa app was clear and precise. All major functions are present to control the KCP70UW Smart Air Purifier with your voice.

Living in an arid high-altitude region of the country, the humidifier is a welcome feature of the Sharp KCP80UW air purifier. Unfortunately, due to the climate here, the humidifier reservoir empties out pretty rapidly and needs to be refilled daily. The Sharp Air app does send alerts to remind you when to refill the humidifier tray, which is helpful. Your mileage may vary depending on your climate, but it would be nice to have a larger water reservoir so we didn’t have to fill it as often. That being said, we noticed a dramatic reduction of static shocks and our skin felt less dry over the course of testing the air purifier, so refilling the humidifier tray is a minor complaint.

All in all, our testing experience with the Sharp KCP70UW Smart Air Purifier was a joy. It was quiet, significantly reduced the amount of dust and cat hair in the air, and added some humidity to our master bedroom. We could definitely tell a difference in the air quality within a day or two and being able to monitor in the Sharp Air app makes noticing trends easy and fun.

Verdict

The Sharp Smart Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier with True HEPA + Humidifier for Large Rooms (model KCP70UW) more than delivers on the company’s motto of “Simply Better Living” by providing a quiet, effective air purifying and humidifying experience for your home. If you’re looking for an effective air purifier that runs quietly, has voice controls, and makes breathing easier and your indoor air quality more enjoyable, we highly recommend this smart air purifier for your home.

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