Dreo Purifier Tower Fan 710S review: 2 home essentials in 1

Want to clean the air and fill the room with a nice breeze at the same time? Dreo’s new Purifier Tower Fan 710S does double duty and, according to the company, is unique in offering two separate motors that perform these two tasks independently.

Dreo accomplishes this by effectively stacking two devices on top of each other: A small air purifier on the bottom, and a tall tower-style bladeless fan on top. The strange duality of the combined device, at 23 pounds and nearly four feet tall–46.46 x 11.02 x 11.02 inches (HxWxD)–is pretty obvious from the get-go, and the finished product looks decidedly peculiar, as if James Dyson had set his mind on designing a modernized Tesla coil.

Let’s analyze the device from the ground up. There’s a cylindrical purifier with a HEPA H13 filter inside its base. Dreo specifies a single CADR of 102 cubic feet per minute, and while it does not suggest a maximum room size for the device, it does bill the unit as suitable for “large space purification.” Still, that CADR is quite low for a device of this size and wouldn’t normally be appropriate for a large room. Three levels of purification speed are available, along with an auto mode that responds to ambient PM2.5 levels in real time.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

A fan sits atop the purifier, which Dreo says can pump out air at a speed of up to 27 feet per second, with fresh air reaching up to 39 feet away. I could feel some level of breeze at a range of at least 35 feet. The unit can also be set to oscillate with a maximum rotation of 120 degrees. Preset symmetric oscillation angles of 30, 60, 90, and 120 degrees are available, or you can opt for an asymmetric oscillation that, say, rotates 15 degrees to the right and 60 degrees to the left for a total of 75 degrees of coverage.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best air purifiers.

Twelve fan speeds are available; again, independent from the purifier (which can be completely shut off while the fan runs, if desired). Additionally, the fan features four operational modes, including a sleep mode that slowly decreases in speed every half hour, a gentle breeze mode, and an auto mode that adapts the speed (and purifier) to both ambient temperature and air quality.

At full blast—maximum purifier speed and maximum fan speed—the device gets pretty loud (61.7dB, per Dreo), but I was surprised to find it far from overwhelming. At lower speeds, it’s quiet enough to sleep by.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

All of this can be controlled in one of three ways: with its on-device control panel, a remote control, or the mobile app. Dreo’s onboard controls are all touch-sensitive and mounted on the top of the device. Plus and minus buttons control fan speed, and a leaf icon cycles through the four purification modes. A timer button lets you select an automatic shutoff up to 24 hours into the future. The remote control offers a small sampling of these features.

On the front face of the device, above the fan grille, you’ll find an informational display that indicates a few pieces of information depending on the setting you’re on, including ambient temperature, fan speed, a PM2.5 air quality measurement, and remaining filter life. You can cycle through these with the Info button on top of the purifier. Beneath this readout is a color-coded bar corresponding to air quality. Four levels are indicated: Blue is excellent, red is poor.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

Christopher Null/Foundry

Dreo’s app offers a quick route to pairing with the fan and bridging it to your Wi-Fi network (2.4GHz networks only). Here you’ll primarily find more information about your air quality, including a PM2.5 measurement, ambient temperature, and a real-time filter-life countdown. Each of the above levels—fan speed, oscillation, and purification settings—can be tuned in a single pane in the app. The app also offers the only way to turn the display off manually, outside of putting it into sleep mode. Lastly, the app also features a capable scheduling system for setting up recurring on/off operations; support for Alexa and Google Assistant devices is also included.

I had no trouble pairing the purifier to my phone and found that all of the features I’ve mentioned work well, although the onboard controls require a bit of a learning curve to master. The app is particularly well designed. That said, figuring out occasions when I might want to use a purifier and fan separately has been something of a challenge. When running the fan, I can’t envision a scenario when I wouldn’t want to also use the purifier—unless perhaps I was using the fan outdoors. The flipside makes more sense: You might not always want a fan running when the air needs cleaning, although I would not want this enormous machine in the room unless I knew I’d need its fan feature frequently.

The good news is that the $300 price tag is decidedly reasonable for a device that does double duty, and while the fan can really put out a lot of air, the limited cleaning power of the purifier makes it less than ideal for scrubbing larger spaces. And at launch, Dreo was offering stackable coupon codes that knocked another $50 off the price if purchased direct from the manufacturer.