Nice machine but has drawbacks

01/03/05 update.... although I still consider this review accurate I did exchange this unit for a Venta Airwasher after deciding that the Air-O-Swiss machine does not evaporate as much water as the Venta unit.

I recently purchased one of these units for my bedroom. The machine replaced the Venta LW24, which I have been very happy with. The Venta was moved to my home office and the new Swiss Air machine was given bedroom duty.

The primary advantage of air purifiers like the Swiss Air or the Venta is that they use water as the filtration system, as a result there are no pads to replace and in general they are easy to clean. You also get the additional benefit of an air cleaner that humidifies the room it is placed in. This is a huge benefit in cold, dry climates (like Colorado where I life) as you really need a humidifier in the cooler months. This particular model is rated at cleaning and humidification of a room up to 600 square feet in size.

The Swiss Air 2055 is a pretty straight forward design that is very similar to the Venta. A fan pulls air down into the unit through a charged grid. Pollutants are extracted from the air by means of two paddle wheels that run through water in the base of the unit. The whole thing is extremely simple and takes just a minute or two to assemble. One nice touch is that the Air Swiss unit has a cord that can be stowed inside the housing, so you don't end up with a long card on the floor that someone might trip on.

To set the unit up you simply drop in the two nylon paddle wheels into the base of the unit, slide the top fan unit onto the base and attach the water tank (after filling with water of course). That's it, there's nothing more complicated to it.

The seperate "backpack" style water tank is nice because you can simply pull it out at any time and fill it under a large sink then re-install it into the unit. One drawback though of having a water tank like this is that as it is gravity fed into the bottom water well you will hear some gurgling sounds coming from it every few hours. This might bother some light sleepers.

The unit has two fan speeds. This is quite a let down compared to my Venta which has three fan speeds. The Air Swiss unit is very quiet on the lowest fan speed but rather noisy (at least compared to my Venta) on the higher fan setting. You might have trouble sleeping with it on the higher fan setting. I don't believe that it moves enough water to be effective as a humidifier on the law fan speed either. It takes several days to evaporate one gallon of water into the air if left on "low". On the high setting the evaporation rate is accepteable but again it is rather noisy compared to other models (Venta).

One advantage of this unit over the Venta is that Air Swiss advises that the bottom tray and paddle wheels are dish washer safe. To clean the unit, simply remove the top housing and water tank and throw the base unit and paddle wheels into the dishwasher. This is an advantage over the Venta which advises the use of an expensive water additive which is supposed to help prevent the buildup of hard water stains on the unit. The Venta also does not advertise whether it is safe for the dishwasher (although it probably is). The Air-O-Swiss machine also has a small holder for putting a fragrance soaked piece of wool so that you can use it to scent a room. The Venta does not have this feature, instead offering to sell expensive water additives to scent a room with their humidifier.

Where-as the Venta has its expensive additives, the Air Swiss has a silver nuetralizer cartridge which they advise replacing annually. This "silver stick" sits in the water tank and kills microbes that might otherwise grow in the water, contaminating it. I expect that the additive that Venta advises for use in its machine serves a similar function. The silver stick at least only has to be replaced annually, but it does go for about $30.

The overall operation of this unit is accepteable. It would be nice to see Air Swiss offer future versions of this product with a quieter fan that is capable of more than two speeds of operation. I purchased this unit primarily because it filters smaller particle sizes, has an easier to fill water reservoir, and sells for $100 less than the comparable Venta model, the Venta LW44 (which is also rated for cleaning 600 square foot rooms). I had a 20% off coupon at Bed, Bath and Beyond and purchased this unit for only $240. The comparable Venta machine would have been about $340 and would not have cleaned to the smaller particle size that Air Swiss claims. It should be noted however that Venta provides a 10 year warranty with their LW series purifiers, the Air-O-Swiss machine only has a 3 year warranty, so if it breaks after 3 years the $100 savings might not seem worthwhile.