Lately I have been reading about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), and trying to research a quality, reliable device for this. I don’t have any conclusions yet, but I am publishing some notes here, for reference.
The Energy Vanguard blog believes measuring PM2.5 (particles) and CO2 levels is important for health. He likes the Awair brand.
This other building scientist performed a multi-hour test across several devices in 2016. He believes the most important measures are PM2.5, then VOCs, temperature & humidity, then CO2. He likes the Foobot monitor.
I see some people ranting against Foobot - here is a rant by DHH in 2017.
The author notes that the underlying sensors and parts are actually all the same across most of the industry. It’s the calibration, composition, and build quality for different units that makes the difference.
This person put together a nice spreadsheet with the specs from 27 products.
The first two sources seem to agree that measuring PM2.5 and CO2 levels is important. If you filter spreadsheet to select the devices that monitor PM2.5 and CO2, that leaves you with eight products. Alphabetically:
air-Q Basic
Airthings View Plus
Airthinx IAQ
AWAIR Element
Honeywell Air Quality Monitor
uHoo
uRAD Monitor A3
Wynd Halo
My Current Feature Wishlist
Measures PM2.5
Measures CO2
High quality sensors + construction
Nice visual dashboard that gives you context about the various ranges
Even better: advice on what to do when you need to take action
No internet connection required
Battery backup
I’m torn between whether I would prefer local-only data storage, so I wasn’t uploading data about myself to the cloud, vs not having the hassle of collecting and analyzing the data myself.
Which of these are any good? I don’t have data or sources yet. But this is a start.
Actions To Take Even Without A Fancy Monitor
Get a low-level CO monitor . I consider these required for every house.
Turn on your kitchen range hood when cooking
Use the right furnace filter (if you have a forced-air furnace). MERV 8 or higher?
I use MERV 6 in the winter time to put less strain on our furnace, and MERV 9 in the summer to filter out more pollen and particles.
Change your furnace filter regularly (1-3 months)
Don’t use unvented combustion appliances
Get a radon test kit
Wash your bed sheets
Don’t smoke
Other Sources
It’s easy to find garbage reviews that tell you nothing, or are clearly just paid ads. It’s more difficult to find good research. Perhaps any of the above eight products would be fine. I will update with other quality sources as I find them.