Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max Review: A Kitchen Cleaning Champ | Epicurious

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Welcome to Clean Enough, a new kind of cleaning column for busy home cooks who have better things to do than scrub and sanitize around the clock. Every month, neurodivergent writer and mom Emily Farris reviews products that can help you stay on top of the dirtiest spots in the kitchen and beyond.

The first time I seasoned a carbon-steel pan in my apartment was also the last time I seasoned a carbon-steel pan in my apartment. In fact, after this particular stovetop seasoning session, I vowed to never season cookware indoors again. That’s because as the thin layer of neutral vegetable oil adhered to the cooking surface of the hot skillet, the air quality in my kitchen plummeted.

I knew it was going to get a little smoky. Smoke is inevitable when heating an oil-coated pan to 500ºF, and it’s one of the reasons people season pans in the oven. But the oven really just contains some of the smoke until you open the door, plus I wanted to watch the process. Instead, my eyes were glued to the LED screen on my Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max.

The Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max is a powerful, responsive air purifier with real-time air quality monitoring and long-lasting filters. It’s designed to purify spaces up to 1,400 square feet in just an hour.

The big selling point of the Never Change Max is that, with minimal maintenance, the multilayer HEPA filter will last up to five years. From a consumer standpoint, that’s an appealing timeline because air purifier filters are pricey and many manufacturers generally recommend replacing the filters on popular models every few months. This is also handy for folks whose filter replacement schedule isn’t top of mind.

For me, however, the device’s real-time air quality monitoring is just as appealing. It’s also a little disturbing—perhaps because I keep it in the kitchen about three feet from where I cook.

Though I’m all too aware that the kitchen is the primary source of indoor air contaminants in the home—and that my microwave’s exhaust fan is mostly useless—I was not at all prepared to watch my own indoor air quality drop from 100%–0% in a matter of minutes. The assessments are based on the amount of pollutant particles detected at any given time, measured in micrograms per cubic meter. Good is 85%–100% or 0–25 particles. Fair is 70%–84% or 26–80 particles (this is the range when the EPA starts to say it’s a problem for people with health issues). And Poor is 0%–69% or 81–430-plus particles.

As the pan I was seasoning got hotter and the oil began to smoke, the display on the Never Change Max showed me just how quickly my air could go from bad to worse. And the worse my air quality got, the harder the machine worked—a feature that adjusts the air filtering power among four settings when set to auto mode.

My indoor air quality quickly dropped from 100% to 0% when I seasoned a carbon steel pan in my kitchen. EMILY FARRIS

While the Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max wasn’t powerful enough to completely clear the air while I was still seasoning the pan (as I learned last year, not even a commercial exhaust system can do that), it only took a few minutes to get back to the Good range (85% and higher) after I removed the pan from the heat.

Now I’m low-key obsessed with the air quality in my open-concept main living space. It only drops about 10%–15% when I make pancakes on the Breville Control Freak Home induction cooktop, but browning meat can temporarily take me down into the 60th or 70th percentile and the Never Change Max automatically kicks into high gear. It’s also fun—yes, fun—to watch the momentary but (hopefully) fairly harmless drops that occur when I light a match or blow out a candle. Even throwing open the windows in my dining room causes a small dip in air quality, though the number varies depending on the traffic and construction happening outside and generally stays within the Good range.

Shark NeverChange Air Purifier Max

Wayfair

Shark

Amazon

As I mentioned above, the LED display shows the quality of your indoor air, with 100% being the best and 0% being the worst. For even more intel, you can toggle the display settings to get additional information, including how long it will take to clean the air and what kind of particles you’re dealing with (though PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 might not mean much to you.)

The Never Change Max has four settings (Low, Medium, High, and Max) but I keep mine on Auto. When the device detects airborne pollutants, it automatically kicks into a higher power setting to filter more efficiently. Once the air quality goes back to the Good range (85%–100%) the power is reduced.

The Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max has three filters: the large, multilayer "Never Change" HEPA filter, which is intended to trap up to 99.98% of pollutants and allergens, plus two “DebrisDefense” filters on the sides, which catch particles like pet hair and dust. The machine conveniently displays an alert when it’s time to clean the dust filters and they’re super easy to remove and vacuum or wipe clean before sliding them back into their slots.

In addition to switching between fan or filtering modes, and giving different air quality readings, the intuitive control panel allows you to adjust the brightness of the LED display and set a shut-off timer. There’s also an optional odor-neutralizing cartridge that can be inserted into the top of the machine for a subtle fresh scent.

The Shark Never Change Air Purifier Max is pretty bulky; it has a 13.2" diameter and stands just over 22" tall. With a suggested retail price of $330 at the time of publishing, it’s also on the pricey side—until you consider what you’ll save on filters. According to the product description, that’s $300 more you won’t have to spend on replacement filters over the course of five years. On that note, I’m compelled to point out that the “Never” in Never Change is somewhat misleading, because while five years is a long time for a filter to last, it will need to be replaced eventually.

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