The Mighty2 has a built-in AQI (air quality index) monitor and a MegaScan laser sensor to automatically detect three distinct air particle sizes: bacteria and microplastics; fumes, smoke, allergens, and fine dust; and dust mites, pollen, pet dander, and mold. The monitor can quantify in real time how much pollution is in the air, including large and ultrafine particles.
Coway uses its own air-quality color-coding system, but the Mighty2 uses different colors from the OG Mighty model. Now the air quality light flashes blue for clean air, green for moderate, orange for unhealthy, and red for very unhealthy. Coway’s color-coding system is a bit confusing, considering that it differs from the US air quality index standards of green for good, red for unhealthy, and purple for very unhealthy. At a glance, I was often confused by what the color was signifying about my home’s air. Using the built-in air sensors, the Mighty2 automatically adjusts its fan speed (in auto mode) to most effectively purify the air in response to air quality changes.
Photograph: Molly Higgins
When I tested, I mostly used it in my bedroom near my cats’ litter boxes; near my living room window, which has lots of outside exhaust and pollutants; and in my kitchen while cooking on my gas stove, which doesn’t have proper ventilation. I tested this model for several weeks, moving around my home and letting the air purifier automatically adjust for various situations where air quality periodically became unhealthy. Although I most often used the auto feature, I also tested the timer and sleep features, which worked as expected every time, and I appreciated the auto-enabled sleep mode when dark, when I forgot to change settings at night.
For all air purifiers, I manually test the air with my own air quality monitor in various situations, and use a decibel monitor to measure how loud the purifier is on the highest setting. I also use a sealed tent and smoke pellets to see how quickly each air purifier clears the pellet smoke (and returns the air to healthy quality) inside the tent when in auto mode. For the smoke test, the Mighty2 took 50 seconds for the smoke to visually clear, and another three minutes and 20 seconds for the built-in air quality sensor light to read that the air was back to healthy on auto mode (from red to blue indication light). In a test with the slightly cheaper Levoit Vital 200S, the smoke cleared in about 40 seconds and took another four and a half minutes to read back as healthy air. Although the statistics are comparable, the Mighty2 was a bit faster overall. However, I really appreciated having the Levoit’s app to check air quality and purification through my phone (since the purifier was visually covered in smoke), and the app notified me when it had reached clean air status again.
According to my decibel reader, the Mighty2 hovered around a moderate 65 to 70 dB on the highest fan setting, and was about 35 dB on sleep mode, not even registering on the reader above the ambient noises of my home. For reference, the hum of a refrigerator is somewhere between 40 and 50 decibels, and a conversation is around 60 decibels. Even on the highest setting, it didn’t feel egregiously loud and provided white noise. Ideally, an air purifier should be able to clean the air in your room five times an hour without reaching the noise levels of a conversation. On auto modes and sleep mode, the fan noise was virtually undetectable.
If you’re a fan of Coway’s air purifiers, or want to upgrade your air purifier from the previous model, the Mighty2 is a solid choice. It’s only $30 more than the previous model, can effectively purify more square feet per hour, and its filters last twice as long as the previous model’s. The upgrade to the Mighty2 will pay for itself in a year of use through filters alone. It’s easy to clean and disassemble, and the purifier helped to keep the residual dust from my cats’ litter down, reduce dander during shedding season, and improve the overall quality of the air around their toilet/general living space.
