Windmill made window ACs look sexy. Now it’s coming for air purifiers

In a sea of air purifiers that look like bulky white appliances, Windmill is launching a stylish alternative. The unit comes in white, midnight blue, and—the real star—a light bamboo that exudes Finnish sauna vibes. From afar, you could almost mistake it for a coffee table, but the machine isn’t just eye candy. It comes with a three-in-one-filter that can capture dust, pollen, odors, and 99.97% of all airborne pollutants. It also has a child lock button and a sleep mode that is quieter than a whisper. At $299 for the standard units and $399 for the bamboo, it might just be the last air purifier you’ll ever need.

More than an AC company

The air purifier has been in the making for three years, but it was in Windmill’s pipeline from the very beginning. “The goal was never to be an AC company,” says Mike Mayer, CEO and cofounder of Windmill. The goal was to become a holistic, design-minded, air care brand.

Since it first launched in 2020, the company has sold more than 100,000 AC units that are now available at major retailers like Home Depot, Best Buy, and Lowe’s. They’ve also dreamed up cute AC accessories like sunset-colored front panels, and confetti-patterned winter covers, and in the spring of this year, they launched a fan that’s available in five colors, including pastel pink and buttery yellow.

To date, the company has raised a total of $15 million, including $5 million this year, from investors like the founders of YETI and others. “We want to own air comfort in your space,” says Mayer, citing issues like air quality, humidity control and even scent. (Every time the brand launches a new product, it is added to its app, so you can eventually control everything from one place.)

Breaking away with traditional form

The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we think about indoor air quality. Studies have shown that poor indoor air quality can lead to respiratory infections and increase the transmission of airborne viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. Exposure to PM2.5 and CO2 (which your gas stove emits when you cook) and volatile organic compounds (which mass-produced furniture often emits) can also contribute to long-term health issues, including cardiovascular disease.

As a result, the global air purifier market is projected to exceed $26 billion by 2030. The market is already filled with air purifiers, but the problem is that many of them look like, well, purifiers. According to Mayer, many brands rushed to make an air purifier and forgot that, on top of fresh air, people also crave something “more modern and better looking.”

To design a “better looking” purifier, the team worked with industrial designers Branch Creative. The brief? “Ignore all form factors today and dream up something new,” says Mayer. At first, the team entertained the idea of an air purifier that doubles as a table or a nightstand (perhaps a bit like Ikea’s Starkvind), but they soon realized that covering the top would hurt airflow. So, they switched gears and designed a different air purifier. When they showed prospective customers a render, the feedback was pretty damning: Some said it looked like a USPS mailbox, others likened it to a tombstone. “We couldn’t unsee it,” says Mayer.

After the surveys flopped, the team went back to the drawing board and, one night, Mayer got a text from the designer with a sketch of the current form and a word written underneath it: “Japandi.” The style, which blends Japanese minimalism with a Scandi esthetic, resonated with the Windmill team from the start. The final form is clad in slats that are arranged closer together at the front and spaced out at the back. Thanks to a powerful DC fan motor, the machine pulls the air in from those gaps, runs it through its trifecta of filters, then expels it back out through a vent at the top.

Putting the purifier to the test

Windmill sent me a unit to try out at home. I was intrigued by the bamboo cladding, and I am pleased to report it helps the unit look nothing like an appliance. It is so pretty, in fact, that I find myself wishing it doubled as a coffee table, or had room for at least a cup of coffee that I could rest on top (and admittedly, worry about spilling through the top vent).

It’s worth noting that the Windmill purifier is on the larger end of the spectrum. It is almost 20 inches tall, and just over 21 inches wide, which may be fine for the bright and airy homes depicted in the brand’s marketing materials, but not so fine for my crowded Brooklyn apartment.

But size matters. A desk-sized purifier (like this one by Blue Air) can clean 90 square feet in 12.5 minutes. Windmill’s version, which is twice as tall and about three times as wide, can clean a whopping 400 square feet in the same amount of time (and up to 1,950 square feet in an hour). But while Blue Air comes in three sizes, including one with similar specs as Windmill’s, the latter only comes in one size. At least for now. “We will continue working on other sizes and types as we learn and grow,” says Mayer.

Experts say you should keep an air purifier in the rooms you spend the most time in, like your living room, kitchen, and bedroom, but at $399 a pop, not everyone will find this option feasible. I first used my purifier in the kitchen, when a cloud of smoke shot up from the salmon fillets I was searing on my gas stove. (A light on top of the machine turned red, I set it to “boost,” and within 20 minutes, the light had returned to green.) I then moved it to the bedroom, where I kept it on “sleep” mode and never heard a thing.

I do wish the machine came with some kind of elegant handle, or hand grasp that would allow me to easily pick it up and move it as I please. But that’s just a quibble. At least it doesn’t look like a tombstone.