A Smart Way To Breathe Better

This wouldn’t be a smart air purifier if it didn’t pair with a phone or connect to your Wi-Fi network, and Zigma delivers on that basic requirement. Unfortunately, it really does only the bare minimum and doesn’t seem to offer much else. The device does connect to smart assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, but you probably won’t even use it that way because of what it offers.

Setting up the Aerio 300 with the phone app and Wi-Fi network is pretty trivial, especially if you’ve gone through the same process with other smart home appliances. The one quirk, which probably shouldn’t be a surprise by now, is that it only works with 2.4GHz Wi-Fi bands. This is a common malady with smart appliances, so you might not be too shocked if you already own robot vacuums.

The Android and iOS apps offer the essentials: it lets you turn different modes on or off, and replicates almost everything that’s available via the physical controls. The companion app also lets you schedule times when the air purifier kicks in, but, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be logging of any sort to review past data. The app also shows information about air quality, environmental data, and the filter’s estimated life, so you’ll know days beforehand when you need to replace it.

Oddly enough, there is one smart feature that’s not accessible from the physical buttons, but can be enabled using the app: an AI-powered auto mode that takes into account not only the quality of indoor air but also the forecast for outdoor air, as well as your personal schedule. The AI learns the latter over time, and you’ll need to manually correct mistakes if you want to adjust its brains. It would have been nice to have this function available on the air purifier itself, but maybe it was intended to make the app more special.

The Aerio 300 can be connected to smart assistants, but you can only use them to turn the machine on or off, toggle Child Lock, and toggle the Ionizer/UV-C sanitizer. You can’t even change the mode or gear using your voice, so it’s pretty useless for anything else. Hopefully, Zigma has plans to improve the situation with future updates.