Our 8 Favorite Indoor Air Quality Monitors We Tried (2025)
Until I wrote around my search for good air In my apartment in Brooklyn, I didn’t know air quality monitors even existed. Now I couldn’t live without her. When you become aware of your indoor air quality index, you enter a realm where the invisible becomes something you can never unsee.
We humans have evolved to respond to changes in temperature, precipitation and wind. Bad air is silent and often odorless, but is exposed to certain fumes, particles and high CO levels over the long term2 can impair cognition and make us susceptible to certain cancers and heart and respiratory diseases. Reading the daytime temperature and looking at the weather forecast prepares us for the future, but checking your air quality could be the biggest step towards improving your health.
These air quality monitors were tested in two locations: a more than 130-year-old Brooklyn apartment with a gas stove in a building under construction, and a cabin in the woods of Maine that uses an electric stove. Two cats, one dog and two people were present throughout the test period. I constantly had different air purifiers in operation. None of the sites had central air or air conditioning with MERV filters, nor were there exhaust fans over the stove to exhaust fumes outside. At both locations, it was cooking on the stove that produced the worst air. These monitors were used both on days when the outside air quality was excellent and on days when the air quality was in the moderate range, i.e. above 50°C US Air Quality Index.
More options for this Keep your air quality under controltake a look at our guides on Best air purifiers And Best robot vacuum cleaners.
Updated January 2025: We added the Zen Air from PurpleAir, the Smart Air Quality Monitor from Govee and the Ikea Vindstyrka; Added specification tables; and updated links and prices.
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