I’m back with an eco-friendly tech review, and this time it’s the Briiv Pro! You might remember my review of the Briiv, the original air purifier powered by plants. Well, in exciting news, Briiv has announced the Briiv Pro, a new model that combines advanced technology with the same sustainable principles. Here’s my review!
Who – Or What – Is A Briiv?
Briiv creates the most sustainable air filters on the market. You may have seen social media posts highlighting the air purifying qualities of house plants – well, Briiv air filters do the equivalent job of thousands of house plants! These innovative, sustainably-made air filters are designed to purify the air in your home, reducing on nasty odours, cooking smells, and pollutants.
For their initial model, the Briiv, founder Sean Sykes designed the air filter to use the micro-structures of moss, coconut, and a nano matrix filter to purify air. The Briiv Pro builds on this, as I shall outline below.
With more of us spending substantial amounts of time indoors and at home, air purifying can help promote a healthier environment to live and work in. In one of my previous homes, I actually developed asthma due to the road pollutants being trapped in my home (which miraculously cleared up when I moved out), so I’m particularly keen on making sure I have clean air to preserve my health.
The Briiv Pro At A Glance
In my initial review of the Briiv, I was taken with it’s nature-inspired design, being made from 90% natural materials. In fact, Briiv uses less plastic than any other air purifier on the market. Both the Briiv and the Briiv Pro are built on an initial design which uses three filters – moss, coconut, and a nano matrix filter. These are all vegan, with the moss and coconut filters being compostable at the end of their life. Plus, they’re all relatively inexpensive to replace. For the Briiv Pro, I’m pleased to see that this is still the case. It’s not only an effective design, but it also looks nice alongside my houseplants and interior design.
What makes the Briiv Pro so much more attractive is that it seems to be almost twice as effective as its predecessor. It’s reportedly 6900% more effective than house plants at cleaning your air, compared to the 3000% of the Briiv.
And, for those of you wondering about your winter bills, both the Briiv and the Briiv Pro are low-energy air filters that are estimated to cost just £3.64 to run per year.
The difference with the Briiv Pro is that it tailors its activity to your home. Not only is it the world’s most sustainable air filter, it’s also the world’s first AI-integrated air filter. Yes, that’s right: it has an in-built AI that will monitor your home’s air for you, and activate as and when required.
So, for example, say you have guests over for dinner, and you cook some delicious vegetables. Now, the Briiv Pro will sense that and remove the cooking smells from the air. Likewise, if you decide to burn candles, the Briiv can remove the toxins left behind in the air (it’s partly why I switched to natural candles).
However, with the upgrade to the Briiv Pro, comes an upgrade to the Briiv app, with a new version that can allow you to schedule when you want your home’s air to be filtered – no matter which Briiv air filter you own. In fact, the app upgrade means you can now link it up to other Briiv units, as well as connect it to your Alexa devices!
Briiv vs. Briiv Pro
I didn’t think I could get excited about upgrading my air filter, but I’m actually looking forward to trying the Briiv Pro when it launches in 2024. Along with the additional benefits to the Briiv, it comes with two new modes:
- Canary mode: to automatically sense poor air quality and clean your space when it’s needed
- Zone mode: to connect and control multiple Briiv units to look after your entire home
That was always one of the drawbacks with the Briiv – remembering to turn it on. In my previous studio apartment, I would sit next to it while I did my work and got into a routine with turning it on each day. In our new home, I’m less inclined to turn it on, as we now have multiple rooms on multiple levels. But in an ideal world, I’d have two Briiv filters – one for our main living/dining space, and another for our bedroom.
Here’s an overview of all the functionality of the Briiv Pro compared to the original Briiv model:
Briiv Original
- Easy set-up ✅
- Hands-free controls ✅
- Low noise ✅
- Compostable filters ✅
- Connects to Alexa ✅
- Scheduled air filtering ✅
- New Briiv app ✅
- Air quality monitoring ❌
- Improved filter health monitoring ❌
- Canary mode ❌
- Zone mode ❌
Briiv Pro
- Easy set-up ✅
- Hands-free controls ✅
- Low noise ✅
- Compostable filters ✅
- Connects to Alexa ✅
- Scheduled air filtering ✅
- New Briiv app ✅
- Air quality monitoring ✅
- Improved filter health monitoring ✅
- Canary mode ✅
- Zone mode ✅
Overall, I’m excited to be able to set schedules, monitor filter health and control my Briiv remotely with the Briiv Pro!
How To Replace Briiv Air Filters
For the time-being, I’ve decided to replace the air filters in my Briiv. In an ideal world, these should be replaced every year, so mine are a few months overdue. The natural micro-structures of moss and coconut can be composted at home, along with a matrix filter being industrially compostable. Here in Brighton, we’re part of a community composting scheme with limitations on what can or can’t be composted, so please do check before throwing these in your compost bin.
In order to replace the filters in your Briiv unit:
- Remove the glass container
- Remove the moss, coconut, and matrix filters
- Assemble the matrix filters
- Place the coconut filter on top
- Replace the glass container
- Fill with new moss
The cost of the replacement filters is just £35 – a tenth of the overall unit – which I think is really reasonable. Now I just have to sit back and (not) hold my breath until the Briiv Pro drops!
