The Airhood is a portable exhaust range hood designed to pull those bad cooking fumes away from you while you cook. The Airhood uses a simple oil filter screen, charcoal layer disc and exhaust fan in a countertop unit you can take with you to help you out when you don’t have a range hood or exhaust fan.
Exhausting fumes is a necessary aspect of cooking indoors. When you don’t have adequate ventilation with a range hood or exhaust fan you end up with greasy walls and cabinets in your kitchen. The Airhood aims to tame those greasy airborne particles from landing on your kitchen to begin with. The Airhood says it will “Reduce grease, smoke, cooking odors, & oil residue from forming.” Lets take a closer look.
“Very often, high temperatures can cause oils and fats to vaporize into toxic fumes that are dangerous for your long-term health. Instantly filter those harmful particles away with AirHood™.”
Specs
The Airhood comes in 2 flavors; a plugin wired version and a wireless battery powered version. 3 fan speed settings let you choose your level. An oil filter screen is mounted at the front intake of the unit, along with a charcoal disc just behind it that works in tandem to filter the exhaust. Both the oil filter screen and charcoal layer secured in place by the magnetic cover and are easily removed. The oil filter is washable while the charcoal filter should be thrown away after 100 hrs of use. It’s worth mentioning that the shell material is UL94-V0 rated ABS (flame-retardant).
The Airhood measures 13.15 × 8.70 × 5.51″ and weighs 3.92 lbs (wired) & 4.01 lbs (wireless). Fans speeds are 3,100 rpm setting 1, 4,000 rpm on setting 2 and 5,000 rpm on setting 3.
The wireless version has a built-in Lithium-ion 4400 mAh rechargeable battery. Recharging time is 180 minutes for a full charge. runtime 480min/setting 1, 240 min/setting 2, 120 min/setting 3.
Airhood has provided us with an unit to test and bring you our hands-on experience. This review article is based on our personal experience with the Airhood and your mileage may vary.
Using the Airhood
When you don’t have a working range hood to exhaust your cooking fumes the Airhood comes in handy. The Airhood is essentially a box fan with the two integrated filters. The simple design uses a magnetic cover to keep the oil filter and charcoal filter in place.
You’ll want to place the unit as close to your cooking area without going too close to any open flame from the stove. Ideally the Airhood works best for induction style electric cooking surfaces. This way you don’t get external flame that could melt the plastic housing on the Airhood.
The Airhood unit sits on your countertop and the intake opening measures 5.25″. The intake effective area sits 6″ off the counter to about 11″. If you need a little more height an optional Base Boost that elevates the Airhood by an additional 2″ for $19.99 bringing the intake area to 8″ – 13″.
Airhood offers a 1 year extended warranty for $35
Performance Experience
We’ve been using the Airhood for roughly 7 weeks with varied results. Ideally you’ll want to use the Airhood with an induction style cooking surface since it bares no open flame and as a result the Airhood can be that much more effective. That said it did seem to work with an open flame as well, you just should not place it as close.
The intake area measures just 5.25″ so you cannot expect that it will be as effective as a full-sized range hood. A range hood will also have a conduit to the outside to exhaust the fumes completely so there’s a major difference there. That said, when you don’t have a range hood or exhaust fan the Airhood becomes much more valuable and a useful appliance to have around the kitchen.
While the Airhood is certified as an “Air Cleaner” it is NOT necessarily an “Air Purifier“. Will it purify smokey air if you burn something? The Airhood will not purify smoke-filled air with any efficiency so don’t expect it to remove a kitchen full of smoke.
In our testing we purposely burned a burger slightly in the frying pan and the Airhood didn’t help with the purification of the air or smell. While the charcoal disc certainly did soak up some of the smokey cooking odor, it was simply over run by smoke with no place to exhaust it. If anything it help spread it around once the smoke reached a visible level. We needed to use a full-sized air purifier to clean the smoke and odor completely.
How to use the Airhood effectively
What the Airhood does do is to maintain a cleaner kitchen and cut down on the grease that settles on your countertops and cabinets in your kitchen. It needs to be used in a preventative manner and in that capacity the Airhood can be an effective means of cutting down on fumes and airborne grease particles.
Since the oil and cooking fumes can be somewhat or nearly invisible at times it can be difficult to tell at first if the unit is operating effectively. However, after using it regularly you can quickly see the oil build up in the oil filter screen and you can also smell the fumes on the charcoal filter.
What the Airhood will not do is to stop the splatter when cooking things like steaks or burgers where you’re getting greasy splatter from the frying pan. You’ll want to wipe down the Airhood after each use as the unit does become greasy itself from being close to the cooking source. Thankfully this simple design does make it indeed easy to clean. You can toss the oil filter into the dishwasher, toss out the charcoal disc after about 100 hrs of use and wipe down the unit exterior with a mild grease cutting spray like a Lysol or even Windex will work.
The Airhood is very Noisy
The volume levels are incredibly loud and arguably the unit isn’t as effective as it could be at the lowest speeds. Check out the stats below for some reference points on fan speed, noise and airflow rates.
Fan Speed / Airflow / Noise Level (distance 3.3 feet /1m)
Fan Speed I (3,100rpm +/-5%) 1.1 – 1.33 m³/min < 60 dBA
Fan Speed II (4,000rpm +/-5%) 1.45 – 1.8 m³/min < 65 dBA
Fan Speed III (5,000rpm +/-5%) 2 – 2.5 m³/min < 70 dBA
A full-size range hood is better but
A Full-sized range hood is also mounted above your stove top so it will of course pull all the fumes and smoke easier and quicker. But if you try to compare the Airhood to a full-sized range hood with exhaust then you’ll be disappointed. When you don’t have any kitchen exhaust solution the usefulness of the Airhood is more easily realized. The Airhood can be an effective means of cutting down on cooking fumes and kitchen grease that will settle on your cabinets and anything else exposed in your kitchen.
The Airhood is unique and there’s currently nothing on the market exactly like it but the price could be a bit more friendly and we felt the base should have been included.
That’s a Wrap
The Airhood is a portable countertop unit that can cut down on some of the grease from cooking in your kitchen when you don’t have a range hood installed. While it isn’t as effective as a traditional exhaust system, the Airhood does reduce the amount of airborne grease that normally coats everything in your kitchen. Comes in a wired and wireless version for your convenience and in three colors: space blk, ivory wht, cadmium orange. This simple design allows you to cut down on your cooking fumes in smaller enclosed areas that don’t have a built-in exhaust fan or range hood. Ideal for induction stove tops.
$156.00 $126.00 Wired Airhood$196.99 $158.00 Wireless Airhood
