Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite review: Silently cleaning the smog in your room
I have been running Xiaomi air purifiers at home for years now, given that they have been the most affordable and easy to use of all the products in this segment. Also, given the simplicity of the earlier models, I found it easy to run them around the clock when my son was very young. Now, the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite, I realise, is a much more evolved version, though the simplicity and ease of use are still at the core of the product.
The design looks similar to the earlier models, though the thinking has evolved with the air purifier now sleeker and more compact. And unlike earlier models, this one opens from the top to offer a slot for the filter at the base. The upper half houses the fan. Up front, there is an LED panel that shows you AQI levels, temperature, and humidity in the room along with the filter status. Plus, a colour band shows the pollution levels, which are rarely green in Delhi.
The colour band indicates the actual air quality. (Image credit: Nandagopal Rajan/The Indian Express)
The Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite pulls in air from around it. It runs it through the filter with a primary layer, a true HEPA layer with an antibacterial coating, and an activated carbon filter layer. It does this very silently most of the time unless it is in auto mode and it senses a spike in pollution like when you have opened the apartment window for a few minutes. There is a power button on top, but it has a muted design because most of the controlling will be run via the Mi Home app. Using the app, I set up schedules with the air purifier, switching it on every night at 9 pm and switching it off around 7.30 am. But if you have a small child at home, I suggest keeping this on for a few months till pollution levels are more palatable — it is sad that even when the AQI levels come down, it is never within acceptable levels in most of North India. You can also set this up to work with Alexa or Google Assistant, thus making the power button redundant again.
I started using the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite when the AQI levels were unreasonably high in Delhi. With PM 2.5 levels over 300, the purifier took under 5 minutes to bring the air inside my small bedroom under 50. When levels are half of this, it can bring down the AQI levels in a couple of minutes. Today, when I woke up, the purifier was showing a PM 2.5 of 20 which it had been maintaining for most of the night. Also, the purifier does a good job of eliminating odours too, thanks to the active charcoal in the filter. So you can run this even after you have had a hearty mooli parantha breakfast.
Best budget air purifier for this winter. (Image credit: Nandagopal Rajan/The Indian Express)
The filter of the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite can easily last a year, given that there will be days when you will not need the air purifier, even in Delhi. So your actual cost of running this is an additional Rs 2,500 every year, if you change the filter as suggested by the purifier. At Rs 10,999, the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite is the most uncomplicated air purifier you can buy at the moment. There are air purifiers that do more, but then they cost that much extra too. This one will silently run in your room, maintaining air quality levels that make your day and night a little bit better. That's all most of us need.
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Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite
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| Pros 👍 | Cons 👎 |
| Affordable | Plain design |
| Quiet | Basic features |
| Easy to use | Filter cost |
| Compact |
App needed for some settings
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Long-lasting filter
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