Companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, and many other corporate A+-listers know the value of the brand. The Sharper Image, which declared bankruptcy in February 2008 and in June announced it was shuttering its retail stores, hopes that its once highly regarded brand can resuscitate its business.

The Sharper Image, whose Web site says "Welcome to a New Era: Quality, Innovation, Design," is now licensing products bearing its name and selling them through third-party retailers, according to a January 19 article in The New York Times. The story also noted that the company is working on "a new generation of its famous (or infamous) air purifier."

In recent years, our tests of several versions of the Sharper Image's air purifiers, including the largest Ionic Breeze models, consistently found that they did not do a good job at cleaning the air of dust and smoke. What's more, the units we tested emitted ozone as a by-product. While ozone in the upper atmosphere protects us from the sun's ultraviolet rays, ground-level ozone is an irritant that can aggravate asthma and decrease lung function. Over time, the Sharper Image's air purifiers emitted less ozone, but their cleaning performance remained lackluster. We're always interested in testing new air purifiers, including those from the Sharper Image.—Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman

Essential information: Remember, it's smarter to remove the sources of indoor-air pollutants or to ventilate your home than to rely on a device to remove the pollutants from indoor air. So before you buy an appliance to deal with indoor-air-quality problems, try these simple, inexpensive steps. Consumer Reports believes that air purifiers that emit even small amounts of ozone are not your best choice. To learn more about air purifiers, read our report and visit our product page.