An excellent alternative or complement to air purifiers in a large indoor smoking area is a powerful smoke eater. Typically offering electrostatic air filtering, they are impressive self-contained purifiers ideal for big indoor spaces.
In this guide, we will present you with the Top 10 Best Smoke Eaters For Cigars:
- Smokemaster X-11Q
- Smokermaster X-400
- DesignAir P600 Portable
- EverClear CM-11
- MiracleAir CM-12
- Smokemaster C-12
- Blue OX 1100 Smoker Eater
- RabbitAir MinusA2
- Blueair Classic 605
- MiracleAir PM-400
You can use the links above to jump ahead. You can also head to the menu below to see what else is covered as well as our other guides.
Cigar Accessories
Cigar Storage
- Installation: Flush Ceiling Mount
- CADR: 1,100 CFM
- Range: 1,000 ft² / 93 m²
- Noise: 51 dB – 61 dB
- Energy Consumption: 120 – 185 W
- Pricing:
- From $2,497 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
Designed to fit into two adjacent ceiling tiles, the Smokemaster X-11Q is one of the most comprehensive and discreet smoke eaters on the market. Its powerful motor can provide a Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) of up to 1,100 Cubic Feet Per Minute while still providing 97% efficiency.
It’s surprisingly quiet even at its highest setting, which can cover a range of up to 1,000 square feet. Furthermore, its energy consumption is quite low compared to some units and will use just 120 watts.
Additionally, it can be equipped with an optional heavy-duty polytron pre-filter but comes with cardon post filters as standard to reduce smells.
"The Smokemaster X-11Q is perfectly discreet yet effective for large smoking rooms or commercial cigar bars."
- Installation: Flush Ceiling Mount
- CADR: 400 CFM
- Range: 400 ft² / 37 m²
- Noise: 50 dB – 80 dB
- Energy Consumption: 50 – 80 W
- Pricing:
- From $1,664 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
Although the X-400 is an older unit, it’s surprisingly powerful and efficient given its small size. Like the X-11Q above, it fits into ceiling tiles. However, it just uses one tile rather than two. As it’s smaller, its CADR is understandably lower at just 400 CFM. Nevertheless, it consumes proportionately less energy.
Best suited to smaller smoking rooms, it’s equally discreet and will offer quiet air cleaning for up to 400 square feet.
- Installation: Freestanding
- CADR: 430 CFM
- Range: 1,500 ft² / 140 m²
- Noise: 49 dB – 61 dB
- Energy Consumption: 52 – 141 W
- Pricing:
- $1,495 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
What sets the DesignAir P600 apart is that it’s the only freestanding electrostatic air filter that we’ve come across. Most freestanding filters are HEPA purifiers, which are great but don’t fulfil the same function. Additionally, it’s very effective and can provide up to 99.3% ASHRAE efficiency.
It performs about as well as the Smokemaster X-400 but can also cover a larger surface area. It’s also the cheapest smoke eater to be featured on this list. If you want a portable device to move into different rooms and provide just temporary air filtration, it’s an excellent option to have.
- Installation: Flush Ceiling Mount
- CADR: 1,100 CFM
- Range: 850 ft² / 80 m²
- Noise: 51 dB – 69 dB
- Energy Consumption: 475 W
- Pricing:
- $2,530 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
The EverClear CM-11 looks remarkably like the Smokemaster X-11Q. Yet, there is one small but vital difference. It features an in-built HEPA filter! As a result, it provides more thorough filtering and will be more effective at eliminating tobacco smoke odours.
Furthermore, it can provide as much as 1,305 CFM but the trade-off is that its efficiency reduces to 65% and can consume a whopping 475 watts. Nevertheless, it’s a useful feature to have if the room gets particularly smoky and needs a quick purge.
- Installation: Ceiling Mount
- CADR: 850 CFM
- Range: 850 ft² / 80 m²
- Noise: 51 dB – 69 dB
- Energy Consumption: 120-185 W
- Pricing:
- $2,111 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
Although most smoke eaters are electrostatic filters, the MiracleAir CM-12 is a HEPA purifier, which is quite rare for ceiling-mounted units. Therefore, if you have a preference for this type of technology but want a ceiling unit, it’s your best option.
Otherwise, it’s just under the EverClear CM-11 in terms of performance with an excellent CADR of 850 CFM. Furthermore, we believe it’s worth using a combination of HEPA purifiers and electrostatic filters, especially in particularly busy smoking rooms. We’ll touch more on this thought below.
- Installation: Ceiling Mount
- CADR: 1,250 CFM
- Range: 1,000 ft² / 93 m²
- Noise: 58 dB – 61 dB
- Energy Consumption: 220 – 300 W
- Pricing:
- From $2,497 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
The Smokemaster C-12 is by far the most efficient device listed in this guide and can provide as much as 99.8% effectiveness per ASHRAE norms when running at 1,000 CFM. Although not a flush ceiling installation, it’s surprisingly discreet given its raw power and not quite as big as you’d think!
Although it can deliver up to 1,250 CFM in a maximum surface area of 1,000 square feet, it’s noise level never exceeds 61 dB. Therefore, if you’re looking for a particularly heavy-duty smoke eater, this is the best that money can buy.
- Installation: Ceiling & Wall Mount
- CADR: 1,100 CFM
- Range: 850 ft² / 80 m²
- Noise: 48 dB
- Energy Consumption: 500 W
- Pricing:
- $1,697 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
Although it’s not really a beauty contest, we find that the Blue OX 1100 is probably the most attractive and modern looking smoke eater on the market. Like most smoke eaters, it’s primarily designed for cleansing the air in industrial environments. Therefore, it has a somewhat engineered appearance.
It can be mounted on either a ceiling or wall while providing a CADR of up to 1,100 CFM. Meanwhile, it’s quiet at its lowest setting at just 48 dB. Being quite cheap compared to other options, it’s a more economical purchase.
- HEPA: Yes
- CADR: 187 CFM
- Range: 700 ft² / 65 m²
- Noise: 20.8 dB – 45.6 dB
- Speed Levels: 5
- Energy Consumption: 7-47 W
- Pricing:
- From $570 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
- $550 – $620 [Buy Now On Amazon]
As briefly mentioned above, we suggest combining the benefits of both electrostatic smoke eaters and HEPA air purifiers. Indeed, they fulfil similar but distinct functions and can greatly benefit each other in providing clean air.
Of course, if you have a small and quiet smoking area, it’s probably not necessary. However, particularly busy rooms with half a dozen smokers or more can get cloudy very quickly!
HEPA filters are primarily designed for filtering air pollutants with fibreglass mesh. As you’ll learn below, smoke eaters capture particles but electrostatically charging them. As a result, smoke eaters live up to their name by removing any haze or cloudiness. Yet, they’re not quite as effective at eliminating strong smells.
The Rabbit Air MinusA2 is probably one of the best-known HEPA purifiers and for good reason. It’s stylish, discreet, and very effective. Therefore, it would be our first choice to pair with a smoke eater.
- HEPA: Yes
- CADR: 650 CFM
- Range: 775 ft² / 70 m²
- Noise: 32 dB – 62 dB
- Speed Levels: 3
- Energy Consumption: 15-100 W
- Pricing:
- $750 [Buy Now On Amazon]
Blueair is another well-known HEPA brand and probably the most famous alternative to Rabbit Air. It features a more no-nonsense design but can still provide an effective 650 CFM at its highest setting.
Furthermore, it features extremely fine filters with webbing as small as 0.1 microns in size. Therefore, it’s small enough to capture even the thinnest smoke particles. Similarly, it can be mounted on a wall or kept as a freestanding unit on wheels if you prefer.
- HEPA: Yes
- CADR: 50 – 400 CFM
- Range: 1,500 ft² / 140 m²
- Noise: 22.8 dB – 50.4 dB
- Speed Levels: Variable
- Energy Consumption: 250 W Max
- Pricing:
- $1,195 [Buy On Elegant Bar]
Our final favourite HEPA purifier to pair with a smoke eater is the MiracleAir PM-400. It’s essentially a less powerful freestanding alternative to the CM-12 mentioned above.
Although not initially designed for cigar smoke, its industrial-grade sorbent media filters are primarily built for working environments to protect against toxic fumes and carcinogens
What Are Smoke Eaters?
Earlier, we referred to HEPA or “high-efficiency particulate air” purifiers, which are probably the best-known air filters on the market. They’re commonly used in households, medical environments, or small office spaces and provide excellent performance given their typically small size.
Smoke eaters are technically referred to as electrostatic air filters. However, given their sheer power and size, they earned a somewhat intimidating nickname. Typically, they’re much larger and are primarily made for industrial or commercial use.
For instance, you’ll often see smoke eaters in garages, workshops, factories, and even kitchens, especially if there is no outdoor ventilation available. As they’re self-contained units that don’t need access to outside, they’re particularly useful for enclosed spaces.
As their technical name suggests, smoke eaters use an electrostatic system to capture particles and pollutants. A large ventilator sucks in air and then electrostatically charges the molecules as they enter the device.
These pollutants, which can range from metallic dust to aerosol paint, are ionised and then electrostatically stick to the filter’s cells. Consequently, clean air is blown out, which usually passes through a series of carbon filters for additional cleansing.
Do Smoke Eaters Work?
Firstly, smoke eaters are very large compared to most air purifiers. Therefore, they tend to provide a far superior Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) for a larger surface area. After all, they are initially designed for industrial and commercial use.
An additional benefit of electrostatic smoke eaters is that they don’t require frequent filter replacements. Instead, you can simply remove the electronic cells and carbon filters and wash them yourself.
A downside of this process is that it can be a dirty job and needs to be done fairly regularly for the smoke eater to work well. Nevertheless, you won’t have to regularly invest in new parts.
While electrostatic filters are very effective at removing smoke, they’re not quite as good at filtering strong smells. As we mentioned earlier, they’re best complemented by a HEPA filter, too. Usually, they are equipped with carbon post filters, but it’s not quite enough when it comes to cigar smoke.
Given that they electrostatically absorb pollutants, odours tend to get away as they’re very small. Meanwhile, HEPA filters use extremely fine fibreglass mesh, which is less effective at eliminating smoke in large quantities but excellent at absorbing odours.
Therefore, it’s best to use both in a place like a cigar bar or lounge. Would you need one at home? Admittedly, it’s unlikely and a HEPA filter would probably be enough for residential use.
Nevertheless, if you have a very large indoor smoking area or tend to have a lot of guests over who will all be smoking, it might be an invaluable investment for ventilating your cigar den.
What Next?
Firstly, did we miss anything out? Feel free to let us know in the comments below! Otherwise, now that you’ve learned all about smoke eaters, why don’t you also check out our related guides below?
Cigars Contents
