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I really like that sometimes things get better over time. From 2016 - 2023 I fairly often did research to try to find the best indoor air quality monitor, and even though in principle it would have been very easy to manufacture something great, the actual competitors all sucked.

But I moved into a new house recently, and looked again; there's now at least one really good option: the QingPing Air Quality Monitor Gen 2.

Maybe it's spying on my for the Chinese government or something and that's why it's so good? But it has a pretty nice UI, measures ~all the relevant things (PM2.5, CO2, VOCs, humidity, temperature), and has an app that logs 30 days' worth of measurements. It's not cheap, but it is a bit cheaper than the similar things I'd bought for the purpose that were also substantially worse.

in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun

Alex Altair
Alex Altair
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Another example; I remember when memory foam was just "a Tempurpedic mattress". Now it's the default foam type. So glad we stopped using "packing peanuts".
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun

Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn
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Coincidentally I'm considering buying an air quality monitor - what's worse about the cheaper ones that come up on Amazon? Is it UI, or they don't measure as many useful things, or the measurements weren't accurate? (How did you know?)
in reply to Amber Dawn

Ben Weinstein-Raun
Ben Weinstein-Raun
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I haven't tried most of the current cheaper ones on amazon; most of my comparison points are earlier generations. I did buy a portable one for Burning Man last year whose measurements seemed... kinda suspect iirc. I mostly only wanted it for pm2.5, but its CO2 measurements didn't line up with what I'd expect based on experiences with other CO2 monitors.

I chose the Qingping because:

  1. I want something that can measure at least CO2, PM2.5, relative humidity, and ideally VOCs; this rules out lots of competitors
  2. I wanted something that has some facility for storing data so you can go back and look over it later, ideally in an app or a web interface.
  3. It's one of the highest-rated choices on Consumer Reports, and I found favorable reviews on Reddit as well. I was a bit torn between it and the Airthings View series, which is the Wirecutter recommended example and Consumer Reports also ranks #1. The Airthings is better on various technical grounds (e.g. it measures radon as well), but the QingPing has a much better interface for casually glancing / displaying.
#1
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun

Ben Millwood
Ben Millwood
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FWIW I bought one and haven't played with it much yet but one sadness is that it seems to make a small constant noise, which discourages having it in my bedroom while I sleep, I wonder if you have that too?
in reply to Ben Millwood

Ben Weinstein-Raun
Ben Weinstein-Raun
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I hadn't noticed it (and it's sitting right on my headboard so I'm a bit surprised I didn't), but yes, there's a teeny fan noise. I guess my bedroom is just already not very quiet (e.g. one window faces a medium-busy street). Very sorry if I caused you to waste money on a thing that's not good for you!
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun

Ben Millwood
Ben Millwood
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you're not responsible for how I spend my money :P was just curious in case it was a bug rather than a feature
in reply to Ben Millwood

Ben Millwood
Ben Millwood
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it's also possible I was just generically not sleeping and the little fan noise was a misdiagnosis, turning it off did not immediately solve my problem
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