Review: Oreck Air Response Air Purifier Automagically Detects and Responds to Bad Air

We all know about outdoor pollution. Depending on where you live, the climate and weather, and other environmental factors, you could have anywhere from great air quality to absolutely horrible smog. Unfortunately, when you are outside, there isn’t too much you can do to avoid polluted air. You could wear a mask. You could move. You could buy everyone around you a Tesla or electric car to reduce the pollution. Or you could never go outside. If you choose the latter, you might actually still be breathing in poor air. Yes, pollution and other particles like pollen and dust exist within your home as well. And it can become polluted and even dangerous to regularly breathe. The Oreck Air Response Air Purifier not only monitors your indoor air quality, it will automatically kick on when it detects contaminants.

I’m lucky to live in a fairly unpolluted environment. But everyone in my family suffers from some sort of pollen or dust allergy. This season, with all of the rain in California, we have had an abundance of high levels of pollen. In fact, in each of the rooms of our house, we have some sort of air purifier. And each of these range in features. Some you just turn on. Some offer HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Air) filtration. And some are tied to other air quality monitoring devices that automatically turn a separate filter or purifier on or off. The nice thing about the Oreck Air Response is that all of this functionality is self-contained. Let me explain.

With other air purifiers, they are either really stupid (you turn them on or off manually). Or they are really smart (tied to another air monitoring device). The smart ones also require you to be really smart. You need to connect them to each other. And you need to connect them to your WiFi (assuming you have the right WiFi and internet connectivity). It can be tricky to set up the smart ones.

Right in the middle of these two scenarios is the Oreck Air Response. You DON’T have to turn it on manually (but you can if you want to). You DON’T have to connect it to your WiFi network (it’s self-contained and autonomous). You DON’T have to have a separate air quality monitor (as I said, it’s all built in).

What you DO get with the Oreck Air Response is an air purifier that detects:

• Dust and dirt particles
• Allergy-causing pollen, pet dander, and dust mites
• Food and cooking odors and smoke
• Pet odors
• Mold spores
• Tobacco smoke
• And pollutants from the outdoors

Funny thing is, you might be polluting your air by just doing daily tasks. Do you vacuum? That pollutes the air even if your vacuum has filtration. Do you use perfume or cologne? If you can smell it, those are polluting particles in the air. Do you have all of the windows closed and a lot of people over? The CO2 levels can increase in those scenarios.

And you should circulate the air in your home otherwise it will just smell and feel stuffy.

Testing the Oreck Air Response

I tested out the model #WK16001 which is designed to handle medium-sized rooms up to 205 square feet. We actually put ours in our living room (to make it more livable I guess). There is a smaller version (#WK16000) for rooms up to 140 square feet and one (#WK16002) for large rooms (up to 295 square feet).

Each model has the same features. It has something called DustSense Technology (which I alluded to earlier) where it automatically monitors the air quality and adjusts the fan speed automatically based on the air quality. There is a color-coded light that will display what the air quality in the room is: blue means clean, purple is slightly contaminated, and red is high contamination.

All 3 models over 2-stage filtration, and odor-fighting carbon filter and the robust HEPA filter which is what magically grabs all of those bad particles from the air. You do have to change both of these filters after time (just like you have to change your HVAC filters regularly – you DO do that, don’t you?). But in case you forget, these purifiers have built-in replacement filter indicators to remind you.

While I liked having the bright air-quality indicator bar telling me the air quality, one thing that I liked was that you could actually turn that off (as well as all of the other lights except the power). This is particularly good if you have this air purifier in a bedroom and don’t want to have it light up the room at night.

I found the Oreck to have quite a quiet operation. It is nice having multiple fan speeds (lower speeds are obviously much quieter than the higher ones).

And if you don’t want to have the Oreck automatically detect indoor pollution and turn on or off the fan, you can, of course, do it all manually.

The three Oreck models are reasonably priced for what you get. The medium-sized one (#WK16001) retails for $229.99 and is available on Amazon currently for $188.99. The small one (#WK16000) is $179.99 and is $149.99 on Amazon. And the large one (#WK16002) is $269.99 and is currently $214.24 on Amazon.

So, if you are looking for a quality air purifier which has HEPA filtration, is EXTREMELY easy to set up, doesn’t require complicated connectivity with other devices, and automatically filters your indoor air without you having to press a button, definitely check out the Oreck Air Response series!

Disclosure Text: I have a material connection because I received a gift, sample of a product or service, and/or monetary compensation for consideration in preparing to review the product/service and write this content. I was/am not expected to return this item or gift after my review period. All opinions within this article are my own and are typically not subject to the editorial review from any 3rd party. Also, some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate” or “advertising” links. These may be automatically created or placed by me manually. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item (sometimes but not necessarily the product or service being reviewed), I will receive a small affiliate or advertising commission. More information can be found on my About page.

HTD says: With the Oreck Air Response Air Purifier, you get clean air in your home without the need to go through a complicated setup. Just plug it in, turn it on, and set it to automatic. And you can breathe a (clean air) sigh of relief!