Airpura names its machines with a letter and a number: R600, C400, T700, F614. There are 58 combinations. Nothing on the box explains the system, so most people either guess or give up.
The system is actually simple once you know the rule. The letter is your problem. The number is your room. Get those two right and you have your machine.
The letter is your problem
Every Airpura shares the same skeleton: a sealed all-metal body, a deep bed of activated carbon, and a True HEPA filter. What the letter changes is the carbon, and carbon is what handles gases and odors. HEPA only handles particles.
- R: the all-purpose machine. Standard activated carbon, True HEPA. If you cannot name one specific chemical problem, this is your letter.
- C: the chemical specialist. The heaviest carbon load Airpura builds, treated to hold VOCs that plain carbon releases. For renovation fumes, solvents, and diagnosed chemical sensitivity.
- F: formaldehyde. Carbon tuned specifically for it. New flooring, new cabinetry, new furniture, new build.
- G: German-sourced Blücher carbon, for people whose reactions are severe enough that the origin of the carbon matters.
- T: tobacco and heavy smoke. Adds a tar-trapping stage that ordinary carbon beds clog on.
- V: treated carbon aimed at a broader chemical range than R, without going to full C-series capacity.
Airpura also builds I, P and UV series machines that add a germicidal UV-C lamp, and in the P series a photocatalytic oxidation stage. Those are designed for clinical infection control. For a home, the filtration is what does the work, and we would point most buyers to the letters above. Our reasoning on added lamps and reactive stages is in ionizer vs. HEPA.
The number is your room
The number has nothing to do with filtration quality. A 400 and a 700 with the same letter use the same approach. What changes is how much air the machine moves and how much carbon it holds.
| Series | Coverage | Carbon | Airflow | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400 | About 1,000 sq ft | Smaller bed | Lower | A single room: bedroom, office, nursery |
| 600 | About 2,000 sq ft | 18 lbs | 560 CFM | Living areas and most whole floors |
| 700 | About 2,000 sq ft | 18 lbs | 635 CFM | High ceilings, open plans, faster turnover |
The 600 and 700 cover the same floor area on paper. The difference is air volume. A 2,000 sq ft open plan with 10-foot ceilings holds far more air than the same footprint with 8-foot ceilings, and the 700 moves enough to keep up. If your ceilings are standard, the 600 is the better value.
One warning that applies to every brand, not only Airpura: coverage figures assume one air change per hour. Two per hour is the sensible target, and four to five if you are managing asthma, smoke, or chemical sensitivity. At two air changes, a 2,000 sq ft rating is really 1,000 sq ft. We explain the arithmetic in how coverage claims actually work.
The 14 suffix means Super HEPA
An R600 and an R614 are the same machine with one change. The 614 upgrades the HEPA from 99.97% at 0.3 microns to 99.99%. Same carbon, same body, same airflow.
That sounds like a rounding error, and for most homes it is. It stops being one when particle exposure is the whole problem: severe asthma, year-round allergies, or a household member who is immunocompromised. In those cases the extra capture margin is worth the roughly $50 difference. Everyone else can save the money and put it toward the right letter instead.
Putting it together
- Bedroom, general dust and odors: R400
- Living room or main floor, no specific chemical problem: R600
- Same, with severe allergies or asthma: R614
- Chemical sensitivity or MCS: C600
- Tobacco or wood smoke: T600
- Open plan with high ceilings: R700
How this compares to Austin Air
Austin Air takes the opposite approach. Where Airpura gives you 58 configurations and expects you to pick, Austin Air builds a handful of machines and puts 15 lbs of carbon in all of them. Neither is better. One suits people who know exactly what they are filtering, the other suits people who want a single good decision.
If you are still choosing between the brands, read Austin Air vs. Airpura. If you have landed on Austin Air, the equivalent decision there is covered in HealthMate vs. HealthMate Plus.
Still not sure
Pick the letter from the problem that made you start looking. Pick the number from the room you will actually run it in, halved. If you get one of them wrong, get the letter right, because a correctly filtered machine in a slightly undersized room still works. The reverse does not.
Every unit ships free with the full manufacturer warranty and a 30-day home trial. Run it in the room that bothers you. If it is not right, we pay the return shipping and refund you in full. Browse the full Airpura range.
