Our top pick, the Airthings View Plus Radon & Air Quality Monitor, measures temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide as well as hazardous radon. Here are the best air quality monitors. The View Plus can also act as a hub for other Airthings monitors around your home. It connects to your WiFi network to receive and send information. Fortunately, set-up is easy, and you don’t need to run any wiring. You can hang it on the wall or put it right on a shelf or table. Using the app, you can set up alerts as well as run reports to analyze your home’s air quality over time. This is an expensive air quality monitor, but many think it is worth the peace of mind. If you are going to monitor your home’s air quality, radon should be one of the things that you watch for, since it is a known cause of lung cancer. This model takes 6 AA batteries, which are included and should last for around two years. Conveniently, the unit gives a low-battery alert when it is time to change them. Price at time of publish: $299 The Airthings app provides data based on your readings as well as pollen levels for your area. The actual air quality monitor does not measure pollen, however. It is affordable enough to put in every room—this may be necessary for large rooms and to get the most accurate readings for the whole home. Price at time of publish: $80 The smartphone app is one of the most helpful. It shows the levels as well as a color-coded system that categorizes them as good, fair, bad, or severe. That lets you get and understand the information with just a glance. The same reports and monitoring are available on your computer. The best features of the app are behind a uHoo premium subscription, although one year comes complementary. It does require access to an electrical outlet but won’t run out of power like battery-operated monitors. Price at time of publish: $399 The air quality monitor measures particulate matter, temperature, and humidity. While it does not measure mold, it will alert you if the overall air quality gets into an unhealthy range. It shows the Air Quality Index (AQI) on a color-coded scale that is very intuitive. Price at time of publish: $107 Note that the actual display on the unit is very hard to see and read. To make much use of the data, you need to log into the app or use your smart home device to tell you what the readings are. Fortunately, there are plenty of helpful tools and reports that you can run to see how your data changes over time. You can even prioritize certain monitoring functions and look more closely at data at different times of the day. Price at time of publish: $235 You can also cycle through individual measurements, but that requires that you adjust the unit itself. It charges via an included USB cord and has a built-in lithium battery. The battery itself only lasts around six hours on a full charge, so it’s best to keep it plugged in via USB unless you are actively monitoring a new environment. You will need to calibrate it when you change locations, however. Price at time of publish: $90 Because it is designed to be portable and provide real-time feedback, you can run reports or connect the monitor to your smartphone. You will also need to recharge it frequently, since the battery only lasts for around 30 hours of continuous use. This model is a good choice if you want to monitor the air in a specific situation, but not great for round-the-clock monitoring in your home. Price at time of publish: $50 To keep it charged, unit comes with a USB cable and a 10-hour battery backup. It doesn’t monitor every airborne hazard, but it does provide plenty of data in an easy-to-read display. Unfortunately, it does not have a night mode to dim the light when it is time to go to bed. You can respond to the audible alarm and turn the unit on and off using the push button on the front. Price at time of publish: $76
Size
No air quality monitor will take up too much space, but if you want to test air quality on the go or in multiple locations, a handheld, battery-powered device that provides real-time readouts may be an excellent option. However, it may come at the cost of a detailed display or sophisticated design. On the other hand, a device designed to stay in one place, say, on the wall or a tabletop, may be a little more aesthetically pleasing, if a little larger.
Smart Capabilities
App-enabled and smart home-compatible air quality monitors are only getting more popular, but there are still some high-quality options that remain relatively low-tech. The advantage of integrating your air quality monitor into the rest of your smart home setup is that it can then interact with your thermostat or air purifiers to provide an all-encompassing air quality control. Meanwhile, an app-enabled device will appeal to you if you’re interested in additional info on your readings, recommendations to improve your home’s air quality, and quality tracking over time.
Why Trust The Spruce?
This article was researched and written by Katie Melynn, a freelance writer who specializes in home and family products. Katie has been writing for The Spruce since 2019. To compile this list, she considered which air quality monitors kept track of common pollutants as well as how easy they were to read and use.
