Hoover Air Purifier 700 Review: Excellent for People with Allergies

A review of the Hoover Air Purifier 700 to see how it can alleviate the symptoms of allergy sufferers.

In today’s post, I am sharing my review of the Hoover Air Purifier 700 (affiliate), which has been recommended by the British Allergy Foundation. I am sharing with you how using this device has affected my allergies. But before we start, let me explain a little what allergies I have and just how they affect my daily life.

Living with allergies & asthma

My allergies started around age seven from what I can remember. They came on seemingly out of nowhere. It started when I realised that being around animals made me poorly. If I went to someone’s house and they had a cat or a dog, my throat would get really sore, my eyes would start streaming and get unbearably itchy until they would swell up and I could barely see. I would sneeze incessantly and after a while, my windpipe would get tight, I would start wheezing and I would have real trouble breathing.

It was around the same time that I was diagnosed with asthma. I had many episodes as a child related to my allergies and my asthma. There were numerous occasions when I ended up in hospital needing treatment and help to breathe.

As I was growing up, I noticed other things that would trigger my allergies. I realised that feather pillows would affect my breathing and that dust was also a trigger.

I had hoped to grow out of these allergies, but I never did. And it was after I gave birth to my first daughter eight years ago that I also started to suffer from hayfever. What’s one more allergy to add to the list?

The animal allergies are the worst as the symptoms are actually life-threatening. But if I simply avoid animals there’s no problem. If I go to someone’s home who has pets, I need to remember to take antihistamines beforehand and to take my inhaler with me. So this allergy is reasonably easy to control.

It’s the dust allergy and the hayfever that have quite an inconvenient effect on my life. Unlike animals, you can’t avoid dust or pollen because they are in the air. You can’t keep dust or pollen out of your home. You have to live with it and mostly medicate against it.

Trying an air purifier for allergies

I don’t know why I’d never considered an air purifier before to help control my allergies. I guess they have just been part of my life for so long that I’ve learnt to cope with them and never really considered that I could do anything to improve the situation.

When the opportunity came up to work with Hoover to test an air purifier, I wasn’t overly confident that it would make a difference but I was definitely intrigued and interested to try it out. I mean if it could alleviate my allergy symptoms that would make a huge difference to my life.

I was sent the Hoover Air Purifier 700 (affiliate) to try out. This particular model is one of the more advanced ones. Unlike the 300, this model has a diffuser and unlike the 500, it has a humidifier. As well as the additional features, it is also larger, at 74.5cm tall, and heavier, at 9.6kgs, than the other two models.

It was easy to unbox and set up. It was already fully assembled and after plugging it in, it simply required the humidifier water tank to be filled and the diffuser bottle to be inserted. The LED light ring on the appliance cycled through red, orange, yellow and green as it assessed the air quality and finally settled on green. It was reassuring to know that the air quality was still good in our home. (We’d previously had a professional indoor air quality test conducted).

WiFi enabled air purifier

The LED lights switch off when the device is in sleep mode

The Air Purifier 700 is WiFi-enabled and can be connected to Hoover’s hOn app. By downloading the app, the air purifier will monitor indoor and outdoor pollution levels, humidity, temperature and air quality in your home in real-time. There is a Pollen Allergy Mode that automatically adapts the product performance to your personal allergic profile. There is also a CO alert and the hOn App will alert you instantly in the case of a heating or gas system malfunctioning in your home.

After the appliance was up and running we downloaded the Hoover hOn app and attempted to connect to the device by Bluetooth. We spent over two hours trying to get the device connected on the app. We followed all the instructions word for word, step by step. We checked our internet settings, rebooted multiple times, installed the app on three different phones and nothing helped. We eventually gave up very frustrated.

I reached out to my contact at Hoover who told me that there is currently a known connection issue with their air purifiers. The issue is being looked at and the team are working on a solution to resolve it. Sadly this means that I am unable to review the app and the added functionality that it offers. However, as soon as I manage to get the app connected I will update the post. 

Needless to say, if I had purchased the Hoover Air Purifier 700 (affiliate), which is currently listed on the Hoover website at £349 (reduced from £499), only to find that it will not connect to the Wi-Fi, meaning the app functionality doesn’t work, I would be understandably disappointed. If you pay hundreds of pounds for something you would expect full functionality. But hopefully this will be resolved soon.

After giving up on trying to get the air purifier connected, we focussed on just the unit as a standalone appliance without the app. We started it off with it in the living room on the automatic setting. The Air Purifier 700 has a Multi Sensor system comprised of a set of intelligent sensors that continuously detect and monitor the quality of the air inside. These sensors continuously analyse the air quality in terms of PM 2.5, PM 10 and Gas (VOC).

At first, I was disappointed to see that our air quality is mostly very good. The levels remained consistently green and there weren’t many occasions when the device was triggered and activated.

Can air purifiers remove dust?

One thing I really wanted to test was the dust. I’d left the dusting for a bit longer than usual so I could see what would happen and what the air purifier would pick up. Normally if I leave the dusting for a bit longer, my allergies would be really bad as I dust and the air becomes full of floating dust particles. I would then feel quite poorly for the rest of the day with a sore throat, itchy eyes and sneezing.

As I dusted, I could see dust particles floating in the air. It took no time at all for the Air Purifier 700 to be triggered and the LED light ring to change to red signalling the elevated dust levels. The machine automatically went into maximum purification mode and started to clean the air. (The Air Purifier 700 can purify the air of a 20 sq m room in just 10 minutes).

An air purifier with HEPA filter

The Air Purifier 700 has a H-TRIFILTER Triple Layer Filtration system that combines three different filter layers in one, capturing and removing microparticles up to 0.1 microns from the air inside your home. It is the outer layer that traps the largest particles like pet hair and dust.

The HEPA 13 filter traps micro particles like PM 10 and PM 2.5, including fine dust, pollens, and bacteria, and removes up to 99.97% of allergens up to 0.3 microns. It has a unique treatment to capture and quickly neutralise pollen, making it harmless for allergy sufferers. 

There is also an active carbon layer that traps and absorbs gaseous pollutants (VOC, NO2), fumes, cigarette smoke and odours.

Once the dust had triggered the air purifier it literally took a few minutes before the light turned green again signalling that the air was back to an acceptable level. And not once did I sneeze, did my eyes itch or did I get a sore throat, which normally always happens when I dust.

As hayfever season hasn’t really started yet, I haven’t been able to fully test the 100% Pollen Neutraliser Technology which pulls in and traps pollen from the air, before neutralizing it. I will look forward to seeing how effective this is later in the year and I will update this post.

Using the air purifier’s humidifier function

Next, we moved the Air Purifier 700 into the bedroom. I wanted to see how the air quality fared in there. I often wake up with dry eyes and a stuffy nose and I wanted to know if the air purifier would help. At nighttime, we switched the appliance to sleep mode. In this mode, the light goes out so it doesn’t keep you awake and the air purifier operates much more quietly. In fact, I was surprised by just how quiet it was. I barely knew it was on at all.

I was very happy to find that having the Air Purifier 700 in the bedroom meant that I did not wake up with dry eyes or a stuffy nose. I had a feeling that perhaps dry air was causing these issues so I made sure to use the humidifier function. It’s really easy to use, you simply switch it on until it reaches the correct humidity level. This can be customed using the app but obviously, we weren’t able to do this.

It was reassuring to see that the device was immediately triggered by aerosols like deodorant. As soon as the aerosol was sprayed, the air purifier kicked in and within a few minutes had cleaned the air and was back to green.

Using the air purifier’s diffuser function

The Hoover Air Purifier 700 also has a diffuser function that releases different fragrances or probiotics into the air. It came with two options, the first of which was Detox Ritual, a H-ESSENCE essential oil. The second was H-BIOTICS, a natural blend of probiotics that can be diffused into the air to create more hygienic surfaces, and inhibit the proliferation of harmful microorganisms such as microbes and bacteria. 

Can air purifiers remove smells?

It was when the air purifier was in the kitchen that it was triggered most often. My husband loves to cook and this seemed to activate the device a fair bit. I was hoping that it would remove the cooking smells and it did help a little but it didn’t get rid of them completely on automatic mode. I ended up switching to max for a little while after cooking and this got better results.

Neither myself nor my husband smoke so we weren’t able to test whether the air purifier was able to successfully remove the smell of cigarette smoke.

Are air purifiers worth it?

So I guess the question is, is this air purifier worth it? I was extremely pleased with just how much it alleviated my allergies. I honestly wasn’t expecting the outcome to be so good. We’ve been using it for just over two weeks now and haven’t suffered from any allergy symptoms at all in that time. And I haven’t had to take antihistamines or my inhaler at all.

Even without all the added functionality that the app offers, the air purifier performed extremely well and is definitely something I would recommend to allergy sufferers. However, it would be much better if I could get it connected to the app.

We’ve ended up placing it in the hallway of our flat as this is the most central position where every room is no more than two metres away. From this position, the air purifier can easily detect all triggers that may activate the device. There is also uninhibited airflow around the device which enables the 360° Air Flow system and guarantees fast and efficient air purification.

We may end up moving it around depending on the severity of my allergies and where I am spending my time. For example, it may be prudent to have it in my bedroom at nighttime come hayfever season.

My daughters would love to get a pet cat and until now that has seemed an impossibility due to my allergies. However, having used the Hoover Air Purifier 700, I’m starting to think that it may be possible after all. Before we commit, however, I think I’ll be taking the device to a friend’s house and checking my reaction to their pets whilst the air purifier is on.

So that’s my review of the Hoover Air Purifier 700 (affiliate). If you have allergies, have you ever used an air purifier? And if so did it work for you? Let me know in the comments.

And don’t forget to pin this post for later in case you want to come back for it.