Natede – The Most Natural Air Purifier

Natede is an indoor plant-based smart air purifier to filter out all the bad pollutants. In this review, we will discuss whether is this product worth your attention? or just another flop on Kickstarter.

Breath in breath out, air pollution is one of the deadliest silent killers that took your life away without notice. According to a report by World Health Organization, air pollution has caused the death of around 7 million people in 2012 alone. What’s worst is that if you are living in a big city, the risk is much higher.

To protect your family’s health, a good air purifier is a way to go.

However, there are so many air purifiers on the market that works on the similar concept. For example like this popular one air purifier, it’s definitely a decent air HEPA filter with a fair price and has been loved by many customers, but what fending off people is the noises and also the hassle of needing to constantly replace the filters. On one hand, many have reported the similar problem of burning smell from the circuit board, which frequently happened to other air purifiers too.

Back to Natede…


Review and discussion — Is this new air purifier worth it?

Natede, by Clairy, is an Italy-made air purifier that features an entirely different approach by using a plant-based purification system. By taking advantages of photocatalysis and phytoremediation, Natede is able to filter out the pollutants via a living plant, and it has been tested by labs (sponsored research). However, the idea itself is nowhere near revolutionary, and here is a cheaper product called Airy I found on Amazon that works on the similar concept, without all the unnecessary electronic component. You can also check the buyers’ reviews.

Does it work? and how?

Without all the buzzwords and scientific terms, the concept is pretty simple and is actually not much different from your regular flowerpot. That said, your flowerpot is already good to purify air, but not effective enough. So, Natede technically allows the air passing through the loose-fitting soil (root) column, so that more pollutants will then be removed, or “purified”.

One problem with this system is that it’s a very slow and enduring purifying process.

As you are not using a HEPA filter which settles things down in literally minutes, Natede is more of planting a plant in your room. So the effectiveness and strength are very much depending on the plant types, stages of the plant growth (aging), the surface area occupied by the roots, and more.

It’s stated to use 3.2 hours for just a small 129 ft2 room, whereas 9 hours for 387 ftroom. That’s more than one-third of a day! On top of that, it’s the result of an air-sealed (without continuous air flow) laboratory condition. So, it will probably take forever to filter your house’s open area.

On the other hand, just like planting a plant and it’s not a set and forgets system, where there will be more hassle down the line — all the planting’s problems, such as taking care of the plant, attracts insect, strong smells, fertilizers, leaking, growing of soil bacteria and molds, etc.

There are some backers skeptical about the effectiveness of Natede:

For shipping…

Please be noted that Netede does not come with plants, but only the flowerpot.

Instead of the reason given by the creators “The plant would suffer during the shipping process!”, which is not entirely true, it’s mainly because of many countries have strict practices when comes to the import of plants and seeds from overseas (including countries like the US, Australia, Singapore, etc), so you probably have to handle the custom quarantine stuff. On the other hand, using your local plants, even under the same species, may vary in the result due to differences in sub-species and also the environmental factors.

Not all plants filter pollutants, neither is any different plants filter the same pollutants. So, the result may vary from plant to plant. The laboratory analytic focus on a few types of plants, as well as the limited VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) substances.

Overall, is this product worth it? Unfortunately, it’s a no from us. Despite being a cool idea of using a living plant in air purification process, it’s far from getting a realistically result for our practical uses. Plus, having to pay more than $200 (additional $21 for shipping) for an air purifier with a question mark is not that much of a good deal. I would rather suggest you to get a tested air purifier like this one, at lesser than half the price.