An air purifier can dramatically improve the air quality in your home, reducing allergens and dust, assuming it’s sized right for your space and you change the filters often enough. And smart air purifiers are supposed to have two big advantages over traditional dumb air purifiers: They can tell you exactly when to change the filters, and they can tell you exactly what’s being removed from the air. The Dreo Air Purifier Tower Fan ($269.98), like the Dyson Hot+Cool I reviewed last year , tries to do everything an air purifier should while also being a fan. And while all of the Dreo’s features work well enough, I’m hesitant to recommend it based on two factors: size and value.

The Dreo stands nearly four feet tall, with a silver fin and a rotating turret. It’s not unsightly; it’s just impressive. Air purifiers, like fans, work best in the center of a room, but you don’t want to put this one in the middle of your living room. Not only is it large, it’s also heavy, tipping the scales at nearly 18 pounds. (More on that later.) There was no assembly required, however; it was ready to go as soon as I peeled back the plastic wrap. At that point, I simply plugged it in and paired it with the Dreo app. The pairing process went smoothly. Additionally, you can add Dreo devices to your Alexa or Google Home hub. While many newer products use Matter to connect products to HomeKit, the Dreo is not currently compatible with HomeKit. (I did find some suggestions online for workarounds to get the Dreo to work with HomeKit, but I haven’t tried them.)

The Dreo app interface uses a lot of white space and doesn’t try to do too much: it just tells you the air quality, temperature, and how much filter life you have left. You can view data for the last twenty-four hours or thirty days. The app lets you set schedules and turn the tower on and off by activating the fan, the air purifier, or both.

With products like this, it can sometimes feel silly or unnecessary to have extra smart features, but the ability to turn an air purifier on and off remotely from another room, or even outside the house, does have some advantages. Yes, you could use them in an automation to respond when the air quality exceeds a certain threshold, but being able to turn them on and off remotely means you don’t have to go into the room the purifier is operating in – and you don’t have to keep track of all those little remotes. This is a real advantage over the (non-smart) Dyson Hot+Cool, as there are a few functions that can only be activated by the remote control, rather than the buttons on the front.