8 Best Air Quality Monitors (Review) In 2019

Our Best Choice product is the Awair 2nd Edition. As you might have guessed from the name, it’s an updated version of an existing air quality monitor, simply called the Awair. If you’ve already looked at the original version, you’ll know it’s one of the most popular and effective air monitors on the market, and this edition features a couple of key upgrades to make the readings even more accurate and easy-to-read.

It looks pretty similar to the original model, which is lucky because it keeps its top spot as the best-looking product on this list. Unlike a lot of more modern-looking monitors, this one is clad in North American Walnut, and could easily be mistaken for an old-school radio, if you’re not looking carefully. The best thing about this design is that it looks good with almost any style of interior design. The front face is an LED display that can show a multitude of different readings. Or, you can set it to just look like a clock.

The Awair Glow is the company’s budget air monitor. They’ve opted for a slightly different design for this one. You plug it into a socket and then plug your humidifier, dehumidifier, air purifiers, or whatever else into it. The idea is that it stays out of your way and controls your home air quality in the background. The reality is that it’s a little too bulky and is much more limited than other air monitors because it has to be plugged into a certain place.

However, if you’re looking for an effective budget air monitor, it will do the trick.  It can measure all the normal things – chemicals, toxins, CO2, humidity, and temperature – but it’s not going to be able to measure them as accurately as the more expensive models.

Next on our list is the Footbot Indoor Air Quality Monitor. It’s actually really similar in price to our Best Choice product, which makes it the closest competitor. And, whilst we don’t think it’s as good overall, it has a couple of features that might make you choose it instead. First, though, we’ll take you through the key features of the product.

It’s slightly more compact than the Awair 2nd Edition and it has a sleek, white shell that could fit in well with a modern home. Hidden inside are some powerful sensors that measure VOC contaminants, temperature and humidity, PM2.5 (fine dust), and CO2. Whilst it’s difficult to say which air monitor is the most accurate, we can say that this one is amongst the best.

The EG Air Monitor is one of our favorite budget options on the market. It’s around $100 cheaper than most of the professional-standard pollution monitors around, so it doesn’t have quite the same accuracy or number of features. However, if you’re looking for something entry-level, that will give you a good insight into your air quality, this is a great product.

One of the main things we like about it is that it comes with an LED screen. A lot of modern air pollution monitors require you to connect the device to your smartphone or tablet, but with this product, you can just pick it up and check your readings. Having said that, it still does come with a corresponding app, if you want more detailed analysis.

The IQAir Air Monitor is one of our favorite premium products on this list. It does the same basic job as the cheapest air monitors, but the readings are generally more accurate, and they offer better connectivity. In simple terms, if you really want the most accurate reading, you should spend more money. But not everyone needs to know exactly what their home’s levels of CO2 are.

The stand out feature on this air monitor has to be the large LED display. It’s super bright and easy-to-read thanks to the color-coded smiley face system and the large font. You can set it to display exactly what you want to see at a glance, including the weather and air quality outside. As soon as you power it up, it can detect your location and display the readings from the nearest monitoring station. This makes it a much more comprehensive tool than the other air monitors we’ve featured.

The Netatmo Healthy Home Coach is another one of our favorite budget options. One of the first things everyone notices about this product is the way it looks. It’s a super-sleek cylindrical design that’s painted pink and only just taller than an iPhone. It doesn’t matter where you put it in your house, it’ll definitely add to the vibe of the room. It’s one of the most affordable air quality monitors on the market and is a perfect option if you want some basic to improve the air in your home.

Of course, because of the price, it’s not as advanced as the professional-grade quality monitors. In fact, the main downside to this product is the fact that it can’t measure VOC levels or PM2.5. Instead, it has a simple measurement called ‘air-quality’ – which in this case means CO2. This is all well and good, but you’ll probably be left wondering how your VOC and PM2.5 levels are, especially after you’ve read this article. However, on the plus side, it does measure humidity, temperature, and, strangely, noise levels.  It’s the only air-quality monitor that we’ve found that has a decibel meter, and it makes us think that this product is mainly aimed at people with young children. And, in that vein, it’s got three different modes: Whole Family, Baby, & Asthmatic.

The uHoo Indoor Air Quality Sensor is our ‘money’s no object’ option. If you’ve got the cash, this is the world’s most advanced home air quality monitor. This isn’t just your one-stop-shop for measuring air quality, it really is comprehensive. It measures everything you can think of, and more. The sensors can pick up temperature, humidity, dust, toxins, nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, ozone, air pressure, and more. That means you can get a completely comprehensive overview of your air-quality.

As you’d expect from a product of this level, the connectivity is awesome. The uHoo mobile app makes your data easy-to-understand and sends you personalized tips to improve your air quality. It can be synced with any IFTTT device and works with Alexa, Google Assistant, Nest, Roomba, and more. Basically, it can connect to anything. As soon as you’ve plugged it in, you just need to connect it to WiFi and it will start sending you data from its nine sensors.

Our last product on this list is the Plume Labs Flow. Just from a quick glance, you’ll probably notice that this product’s a bit different from the rest. It’s the leather handle that gives it away. And the fact that it’s tiny and weighs just 70g. The reason for this is that it’s designed to be mobile so you can take it anywhere with you. This is a product for the truly vigilant among you that want to know about the quality of the air wherever you go.

It works by letting air pass through the tiny holes in the shell and shooting a laser into the air. This laser detects the particles of air and records the data. Because it’s designed for mobile use, it focuses on three primary measurements – Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and Particulate Matter (PM2.5, PM10). These are the three main pollutants that have an adverse effect on our health and the most common pollutants you’re likely to encounter when you’re out and about.