About AirGlen

AirGlen started with a sneeze — or rather, a few hundred of them. In 2019, our founder, Marcus Whitfield, moved into an apartment near a busy freeway in Los Angeles and immediately noticed his allergies flaring up worse than ever. He did what most people do: bought the first "top rated" air purifier he found online. It turned out to be an oversized, underpowered unit that rattled like a box fan and barely touched the smoke haze from that year's wildfire season. That frustration turned into a project — testing every purifier he could get his hands on in his own home, tracking particle counts with a consumer-grade laser particle counter, and writing up honest notes for friends and family. Those notes became AirGlen.

Who We Are

AirGlen is run by a small team of writers, researchers, and home air-quality enthusiasts who genuinely care about the air people breathe indoors. Marcus now leads a group that includes Priya Nadarajah, a former HVAC technician who handles our technical breakdowns of CADR ratings and filtration mechanics, and Sofia Reyes, a longtime product tester who manages our long-term durability trials. We're not a massive editorial operation with rotating freelancers — we're a tight-knit group that has personally unboxed, run, and lived with hundreds of air purifiers over the past several years.

Our Founding Story

When Marcus started digging into air purifiers, he was stunned by how much conflicting information was out there. Marketing claims about "true HEPA" filtration were often exaggerated, CADR numbers were buried or missing entirely, and many "best of" lists online seemed to be written by people who had never actually plugged in the products they were recommending. He began building spreadsheets comparing noise levels, energy consumption, filter replacement costs, and real-world particle reduction. Friends started asking him for purifier recommendations, then friends of friends. By 2020, AirGlen had grown from a personal spreadsheet into a full website, and by 2022 it had become a full-time endeavor for a small team dedicated to cutting through the noise — pun intended — of the air purifier market.

How We Review and Pick Products

Every air purifier featured on AirGlen goes through the same core testing process before it earns a spot in our recommendations. We believe transparency in methodology is what separates a genuinely useful review from a rehashed spec sheet.

Real-world air quality testing: We run each unit in a controlled room using a calibrated particle counter, measuring PM2.5 and PM10 reduction over set time intervals, both on low and high fan speeds.
Noise measurement: Using a decibel meter at a fixed distance, we record noise output at every fan speed, since a purifier that's too loud to sleep near often ends up switched off — defeating its purpose.
Filter and maintenance costs: We calculate the true cost of ownership over one to three years, factoring in filter replacement frequency and price, not just the upfront purchase cost.
Coverage area accuracy: We compare manufacturer-stated square footage claims against actual CADR performance to flag units that overpromise on room size.
Build quality and daily usability: We evaluate control panels, app connectivity, filter-change indicators, and how easy each unit is to actually live with day to day.
Long-term testing: Select models stay in our team's homes for months at a time so we can report on filter lifespan, durability, and any performance drop-off that short-term reviews might miss.

We also read through manufacturer documentation, third-party lab certifications like AHAM Verifide and Energy Star, and independent studies on filtration technology to make sure our written explanations of HEPA grades, activated carbon, and ionizers are technically accurate, not just marketing-speak repeated back to readers.

What Makes AirGlen Trustworthy

We turn down free units that come with strings attached, and we never accept payment in exchange for a favorable review or higher ranking. When we do use affiliate links, they don't influence our rankings — a product's position on any list is based purely on how it performed in our testing, and we disclose our affiliate relationships clearly on relevant pages. If a popular, heavily advertised purifier underperforms in our tests, we say so, even when that means an unpopular opinion in the review space.

We also update our content regularly. Air purifier technology changes, filter costs fluctuate, and new models replace old ones every year, so we revisit our top picks on a rolling basis rather than letting outdated recommendations sit untouched. When a product is discontinued or a better alternative emerges, we update our guides rather than leaving stale advice live indefinitely.

Our Mission

We started AirGlen because we were tired of guessing which air purifier actually worked. Our mission is simple: give people clear, honest, tested information so they can breathe easier at home — literally. Whether you're dealing with pet dander, wildfire smoke, seasonal allergies, or just want cleaner air for your family, we want AirGlen to be the resource we wish had existed when Marcus bought that first disappointing purifier back in 2019.