| | | Good morning! Opening thoughts. Satellite broadband is seeing its first real competitive evolution. Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) has unveiled a new gigabit-speed 'Ultra' antenna, which makes it the fastest consumer terminal in production — headline specs are up to 1Gbps download speeds and up to 400Mbps upload speeds. Enterprise customers, select ones for now, get the chance to test this, ahead of a wider rollout in the early part of next year. Ultra isn’t the only new antenna, for this is flanked by the smaller Pro that does up to 400Mbps bandwidth and a smaller still Nano that tops out at 100Mbps speeds. Pricing isn’t yet announced. Amazon Leo currently has a constellation of 150 satellites in orbit. | | ANALYSIS: DECODING AIR QUALITY IN OUR HOMES  Air purifiers for a must have for homes. When I first started writing about home air purifiers a bit more than 10 years ago, many scoffed at the idea (and the effort), calling them useless. My primary argument was rather rudimentary — there is no harm in running the room’s air through a layer of filters. As you’d probably run milk through a filter. It’s just safer, healthier, and sensible. But I could see where this was going, because the air pollution problem from a Delhi NCR lens and also from an India perspective, still had slightly better numbers. It was only ever going to get worse, and I knew it. And the masses at large were unfortunately at the time bereft of any perspective about these numbers. A 250 AQI reading — they didn’t know what was good, bad, or normal. A decade and a bit more later, here we are — air purifiers are an indoor necessity, and if I got a ₹ for every time someone’s asked me for a recommendation, I’d probably have ₹20,000 or so in a fixed deposit. Here are some tips you must remember, before I get to specific purifiers that absolutely work for me. | | An air purifier has to be the right fit for the space you wish to use it in. Too small a purifier in a large room, wouldn’t work. And a large purifier in a study, for instance, would be an over-do. The best way of going about it is to match the size of your room and the coverage area of each purifier—this is usually mentioned in square feet (sq. ft). | | | | Air purifiers work in the room they are kept. If you keep one in the living room and expect clean air in the bedroom, that will not happen. Buy one for each room — think of this as an expenditure to buy clean air. Placement is important. You should leave space on all sides of the purifier for clear intake and not keep furniture too close to it. Some purifiers have intake vents at the back too, and shouldn’t be placed against a wall. | | | | Air purifiers have HEPA (high-efficiency particulate arrestance) filters. This thick filter captures airborne particles. You must buy one with multiple filter layers — the must haves are a pre-filter to capture larger dust particles, and activated carbon filters to capture allergens that may get through the HEPA filter. These days, multi-layered but single filter constructions are common. | | | | The quality of filters defines performance. While it’s impossible to judge how efficient one is till you use it, you could try holding up the filters to understand their thickness and the materials used. If it feels flimsy, it is probably best to avoid it. | | | | A pre-filter to collect the larger particles of dust will significantly improve the life of the HEPA and activated carbon filters by preventing dust from getting lodged in them. Depending on the brand and air purifier model, replacement HEPA filters can cost between ₹2,000 - ₹6,000. | | | | Filter life will also depend on how polluted the air inside your home is. On average, HEPA filters that don’t have a pre-filter to protect them last around six months, and those that have pre-filters, around 12 months. | If you want my advice on the best purifiers for home, I do have some picks. What has worked for me over the years (and these observations come after testing many, many purifiers) is finding the right fit for the right room size. For the typical bedroom or study room scenarios, the Hero Group’s Qubo Q600 (around ₹14,990), the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite (₹12,999) and the Philips Smart Air Purifier AC1715/60 (priced at ₹14,495) are ideal. Key to that reasoning are the high quality filters that immediately make a difference, impressive clean air dispersion and silent operation (this is crucial in a bedroom, for instance). Wi-Fi connectivity is now a standard feature even in basic air purifiers (it wasn’t, for a large part of the last decade), and that adds convenience. The Philips Smart Air Purifier AC1715/60 has that added touch of the neatest touch control panel, which adds a premium touch. In a larger living room, often quite active with doors that regularly see people coming and going, the dispersion of polluted air needs something that is equally powerful. The Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 (priced around ₹17,999), the Qubo Q1000 (priced at ₹19,990) and the Philips 4200 Series Pro purifier AC4221/61 (around ₹25,899) would be the ideal picks. A left field pick would be the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool HP 10 (priced at ₹56,900) because this also has a really capable heating functionality using the Positive Temperature Coefficients (PTC) heating element technology. The commonality is not just smart connectivity via Wi-Fi to your smartphone app, but high quality filters that do a good job of immediately improving the AQI levels in the room, but also maintaining them amidst activity. That's easier said than done. | | Our coverage of air purifiers, for perspective…  Filtered ventilation and passive purifiers: Decoding air quality for homes Qubo Q1000 and Q600 purifiers exhibit their prowess in peak pollution season Philips 4200 Series Pro air purifier is a touch above par vis-à-vis competitors Why is it so difficult to make an air purifier that is also a heater in winters? Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 adds negative air ionization that you may not need Scandinavian design is a start, but Electrolux Well A7 purifier must plug gaps To counter to hazardous air, Dyson Purifier Big+Quiet rethinks size and method Honeywell Air Touch U series keeps the air pure, but needs refinement elsewhere With washable MESP filter, Nirvana Being’s air purifier saves money and e-waste | | EDITOR’S MARGIN: GETTING YOUR SPENDS JUST RIGHT Now, this is when I begin to genuinely like the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). Utility, personalised and on-demand, not an overbearing always present presence. And the utility doesn’t get much more pin-pointed than helping get the most from your spends, in terms of cashback, rewards points or discounts that you may have otherwise missed. Savesage.club, a fintech platform that does everything from credit card and reward management to optimising your loyalty program spends, has added an AI assistant called Savvy. I often say India’s fintechs do a much better job at building utility for consumers, than India’s banking institutions. SaveSage is a shining example of that inventiveness. The AI assistant sits within the SaveSage app, and has the context of your saved credit card details, loyalty program specifics and then rummages a bin of information about each of these cards or programs, to answer the specific question a user may have asked. Ashish Lath, Founder and CEO of SaveSage, tells HT that putting together (and regularly updating) all the data specific to credit cards, loyalty programs, redemption options, offers and so on, are an in-house effort. For instance, I can ask it “which of my credit cards offer a 1+1 deal on movie tickets” or “I have international travel coming up, which card would offer the best forex charges and rewards rate” or even “how can I redeem my credit card points for a hotel stay in Mumbai”. Some answers may surprise you, by hammering perception, with precise calculations that Savvy puts together in the answers (the forex transactions, for example, reemphasise HDFC Infinia is better value than an Axis Atlas). If you play your cards right (and you really should), it’ll help you save money on many expenses. Savvy is underlined by models from OpenAI and Perplexity, and Lath says the intention is to evolve this quickly. For instance, give Savvy an ability to hold a proper conversation with follow-up questions, much like a human. The slightly longer term vision is an agentic capability which would allow users to give Savvy the rights to do reward redemptions and a few other activities, on their behalf. All conversations are currently processed online, but Lath tells HT there is consideration for on-device processing once the agentic capabilities roll out. Mind you, Savvy is still in the beta test phase, which means rapid updates are to be expected in the coming weeks. SaveSage’s investors include DSP, iSeed, VentureCatalysts, Sharad Bajaj of InsuranceDekho and former Paytm executive Bhavesh Gupta. The addition of Savvy should help add a lot more value to the SaveSage subscription tiers, prices for which start ₹699 per year, and includes redemption guidance, special offers from time to time, and expert consultations on credit card strategies. | | CAR CORNER: TOYOTA’S EXPERIENTIAL MUSEUM This rarely happens, and it's good one automaker has started down this path. Toyota Kirloskar Motor has opened doors to “tem”, or the Toyota experiential museum, in India (yes, “tem”—lowercase, because aesthetics). This is truly the first of its kind presence for any and all automakers present in India. Toyota Kirloskar Motor says the idea is to blend Indian philosophy of mindful living with Japanese culture as well as advanced technology. They insist, tem reflects the belief that mobility and innovation transcend vehicles. As an aside, Bengaluru gets a new cultural landmark that isn’t another fancy co-working space or an artisanal coffee bar. Spread across 8,200 sq. ft., it is located at the Phoenix Mall of Asia, tem promises a “five-senses experience.”Think soothing sounds, curated scents, projection art, lots of tech to admire, and reminiscing about it while probably sipping matcha infused with mango. At the launch, Tadashi Asazuma, Deputy Managing Director at Toyota Kirloskar Motor says, “In India, we found inspiration in the practice of Sādhanā — the mindful pursuit of inner balance and fulfilment. tem is where the Japanese culture and values of precision, serenity, and respect for nature beautifully align with the spirit of Sādhanā, making tem a meaningful blend of both. Designed to engage the senses and spark reflection, it brings together art, technology, and craftsmanship to inspire mindfulness, especially amongst the youth.” Tem is undoubtedly designed to make visitors slow down, reflect, and maybe have an existential moment about life, mobility, and think hard about life’s choices. The tem tour will begin with an immersive mirrored replication that simulates changing seasons in India and Japan. Summer warmth, monsoon calm, autumn glow…right at home since Bengaluru can often experience most of these seasons in a single day. Sensory punches await with music and a cascading water curtain encircling a car draped in satin, followed by what the automaker calls a Design Café which is essentially a curated merchandise zone full of aesthetic merchandise. Bookings are open via the tem website and BookMyShow, and Toyota hopes the space becomes a regular stop for anyone who enjoys art, tech, culture, or simply being enveloped in gentle green lighting. In the end, tem isn’t a museum in the traditional sense, but more a sensory playground, and a cultural handshake between India and Japan. In 2025, carmakers no longer want to sell you just cars. But I, for one, would say, get more of Toyota’s automotive legacy on display. That’ll really get the auto enthusiasts queueing up. I know I would. | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written and edited by Vishal Shanker Mathur. Produced by Md Shad Hasnain. | | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
