I SO wanted this to work, SO needed it to work, like really work, because I have 5 dogs, 5 dogs worth of dog dander, dog smell, dog hair, dog love, just in general all things dog, and 3 are Aussies so they shed aplenty. I love them but they do change the "scent" in the house, and while I don't mind one bit I wanted an air purifier that worked so the air smells fresher for company. I deliberately did not go out of my way to clean prior to setting the unit up because I had read reviews elsewhere that said the machine kept giving 100 as air quality and never changed unless they held a lighter to it, basically it stayed at 100 and then just shut off. Read reviews everywhere not just here if you want the real real. I just wanted them to be wrong because a 5 year filter sounds mighty wonderful given the cost of Hepa filters. So here we go... opened the box, boy the unit was light for such a tall item! Did not feel like there was much to it at all except the Hepa filter, which fits inside the bottom plastic chamber, otherwise doesn't seem like much going on, but chip boards and everything are made smaller now so I waited to give it a try. Next I opened the packet that contained the odor cartridge, it hadn't appealed to me even before I opened it because if a purifier cleans the air what do you need to mask? About that cartridge, I cannot insert the vomiting emoji here but that's the expression I made, SOOOOO strong it blew me away! I have no allergies that I'm aware of, no chemical sensitivities either, but the smell was sickeningly strong. If you remember the carpet powder that some hotels used to use (or still do?) to sprinkle on the carpet to get cigarette smell out of non-smoking rooms, well that's what the odor removing cartridge smells like to me. I didn't want to insert it into the top of the unit, but if not it looks like there is an empty space on top and it's missing something, does not look complete without the cartridge screwed in, so I did. All ready.. plug into the wall, power on and guess what folks?! My air quality is 100! I laughed. Unplugged, gave it another try, registered 100 again, and I KNOW my air quality is not 100, so I let it run for about 15 minutes to see if it would get itself straight and figure out there are 5 dogs here and the air is not the sweetest. Nope, after about 15 minutes it simply shut the fan off. I read a few more reviews about others having the same problem, calling Shark and being told to cut the cord and they'd send a new unit, might be a faulty sensor, and then the second unit doing the same thing. Nope, my time is valuable and already spent too much wishing and hoping this was going to work, should have listened to the reviews, the real ones, back in the box she goes and the big hunk of plastic with a fan and an odor cartridge that will drive someone who actually DOES have chemical sensitivities bat crazy, takes the trip back to Best Buy before the return window is over and whew! One more note.. the picture of this unit makes it appear almost silvery and pretty, it is white, white, white, plastic, not shiny, not silvery, it's a lot of white. These are my feelings and my experience, perhaps some of these work, but I don't have time to go through multiple units in the hopes one might and then the window close for a return. ONE MORE interesting note.. I also purchased a Shark Stratos Vacuum at the same time as I bought this purifier because I DO love Shark products and my other Shark vacuum is amazing, I just didn't want to lug it up and down the stairs anymore so bought the Startos for the 2nd story. The new Shark ALSO takes the odor cartridge, not happy about that, but.. it does not bother me near as much as the one that inserted into the air purifier, perhaps because no air is blowing through it, I don't know, but it ALSO has a hole space on top of the vacuum where if you do not insert the cartridge it looks like you are missing a piece of your vacuum, not a fan of that new perk, hopefully they dump it in the future, but I still love the Shark vacuum, especially when they are on sale. Wanted to share that also because I AM a fan of Shark, just NOT of their NeverChange air "purifier" Max.

Had the unit for a bout 2 months and it worked great. The air quality sensor and auto setting were super useful and would run at appropriate time (cooking, spraying aerosols, etc) and would always recover to stay at 100% almost all of the time. One day, I noticed the quality tank to about 60% with no external factors (especially nothing new that wasn’t there prior). It stayed at 60% and rarely broke 70%. I tried shutting it in isolated rooms, moving to entirely different portions of the house. It occasionally would recover to 100%, but then fall right back down and stay at ~60% sometimes even dropping to the 20s with no external factors running.. worked with customer service and received a replacement unit timely. This one worked as expected for about a week when one night I was in the room on the couch with no one else, and nothing running (not even our HVAC). Again dropped to below 70% quality and the fan kicked into high. Since then it has occasionally been back up above 90% if I move it around, but is usually stuck below 70% which is super annoying to have the fan on high constantly. I know I can shut off auto but that defeats the purpose… I have tried all trouble shooting steps online and the ones customer service walked me through and nothing helps. Either the air quality sensors are very likely to fault or it’s not actually cleaning the air which would be a real problem for an air purifier…

I’ve tried a variety of air purifiers through the years, and some of them work pretty well while others, not so much. When the pandemic hit and wildfire smoke also became more common, having these in your home went from a novelty, to more of a necessity. That, and I live in a very high pollen area that can cause my sinuses to go crazy even indoors at certain times of the year.

So the Shark Neverchange Max hits stores, and it’s a little different than most other purifiers. The Neverchange has a filter that Shark estimates can last up to 5 YEARS in-between changes when used moderately, and this particular model can handle up to 1400 square feet if placed in a more open area. It’s a pretty good looking machine – they come in silver (more white) or black – and is moderately sized but not a monster, at just under 23 inches tall by just over 13 inches wide. Setup is quick – you just remove any plastics from the filter, put in an odor control cartridge (included) if you want, and place it on a floor at least 3 inches from any walls or objects. Took me less than 10 minutes after unpacking it to getting it running.

The filter has varied states that start off by a basic dust filter, clearing basic air debris (which you can wipe off when needed), passing through a pet filter layer, a carbon layer, and finally a “Nanoseal HEPA” layer that can capture particles in your air as small as 0.1 to 0.2 microns. Side note – the first basic filter can be pulled out in two parts from both sides of the machine to wipe off (they look like machine handles but lift the filter out instead – the carrying handle is on the back). Air is pulled in through the sides, and clean air is blown up through the top. A digital readout on the front lets you know how dirty or clean your air is in percentages, and if put in auto mode, will ramp up or down the fan to clean more or less depending on what it senses. It will also let you know when it’s time to eventually change a filter or clean the dust filter. Or, you can simply set it manually for varied stages from low to very high depending on your needs. It’s very quiet in lower settings and once you crank it up you can definitely hear it, but it’s more like an air conditioning noise rather than anything obnoxious. You can set it to run for a certain number of hours and then auto shut off, too. Odor control cartridges can be inserted into the top (mine came with one) but I wasn’t crazy about the scent so have decided not to use it in mine. The power cord is 6ft which is pretty good, but I always like to see max lengths for items like this for the best placement in a room.

My one complaint: There are QR codes on the setup guide and machine that allegedly take you to their web page for that machine, but in reality it just takes you to Shark’s generic sales page and after digging a lot I still couldn’t find what I was looking for. I didn’t need more ino as again, setup is very easy, but the QR really should take you directly to the product model number’s page in my opinion.

Since I haven’t had the Neverchange for that long, I can’t rate the validity of it lasting up to 5 years, but I can say that it does make a big difference in the air quality in a large room compared to others I’ve tried. I have an air quality monitor that goes off from time to time regarding dust or other things in the air, and since turning on the Shark Neverchange, those alerts have gone way down, so it’s working. I would say that while it's a little pricey compared to some, this is a worthy investment to improve the air quality in your home or apartment considering the levels of dirt, dust, dander, and germ cooties that is typically inside these days, and by how much square footage it will clean out compared to smaller units on the market (provided the filter does last at least 3-5 years - time will tell). Thumbs-up!

I purchased 2 of these to replace older Bissell air cleaners. Unfortunately I returned both.

The reason I returned both was because of the automatic "Eco" setting. I am a firm believer that when an air purifier is constantly filtering air, even at a very low setting, that it will read the air pollution more accurately. These air purifiers have an automatic "Eco" setting that turns the fan off. You cannot set it to filter at the lowest setting without it turning off after 5 minutes or so. Definitely felt like our Bissell air purifiers cleaned the air more often then these brand new ones. So I returned them.

Also, the design of the filter housing at the bottom of the unit is nice but not practical. You have to be VERY careful when repositioning or moving the unit because the filter housing at the bottom will unlock easily and when you lift the unit the filter comes out. Not every time but often enough to where it becomes annoying.

One last thing. The overall design is beautiful but since it is a cylindrical shape it's not very practical if you are positioning it against a wall. It sticks out like a sore thumb.