4 ms·

It's almost incredible that for something as "simple" as an air quality sensor, particularly in relation to PM2.5 (the most important metric for most buyers, IM

It's almost incredible that for something as "simple" as an air quality sensor, particularly in relation to PM2.5 (the most important metric for most buyers, IMHO), there's no simple answer as: product X costs $50 and provides 99.X% accuracy; product Y costs $200 and provides 99.9X% accuracy. Two years ago, during one of the most intense fire seasons in California, I spent a few hours studying different solutions, and ended up buying a refurbished PurpleAir sensor. It seemed to work great, but I felt it was a bit too expensive for what it was doing, too bulky, and in general not as easy to use for the ordinary person as it should be. Same problem with home air filters - if you want to purify the air in your house, there's too many snake-oil solutions out there, and few that are worth the spending.

ortusdux 5y ago
Finding myself in a similar situation with last years fires, I have had great luck with the WINIX air filters sold at costco. I bought 2 on sale for $100/ea. They are 5 staged with HEPA and charcoal filters, have a built-in air quality monitor of unknown quality (I should open one up one of these days), and they have an ok app that allows you to check air quality and adjust their settings. Each unit includes 2 years of filters, and they look to be about $30/year/unit to replace after that.
hedora 5y ago
Air filtration and monitoring are a classic market for lemons. Wirecutter has decent-ish tests of air filters, though they assume tiny New York apartments, so you have to dig around a lot to find results for larger units. (From reading their review, you’d think >1000 sq ft homes are unheard of in the US, but the average is closer to 2000 sq ft)
s0rce 5y ago
If you have some electronics experience you can buy the Plantower sensors that PurpleAir uses and connect it to a microcontroller, there are guides mentioned in the comments here.

ortusdux 5y ago

Finding myself in a similar situation with last years fires, I have had great luck with the WINIX air filters sold at costco. I bought 2 on sale for $100/ea. They are 5 staged with HEPA and charcoal filters, have a built-in air quality monitor of unknown quality (I should open one up one of these days), and they have an ok app that allows you to check air quality and adjust their settings. Each unit includes 2 years of filters, and they look to be about $30/year/unit to replace after that.

hedora 5y ago

Air filtration and monitoring are a classic market for lemons. Wirecutter has decent-ish tests of air filters, though they assume tiny New York apartments, so you have to dig around a lot to find results for larger units. (From reading their review, you’d think >1000 sq ft homes are unheard of in the US, but the average is closer to 2000 sq ft)

s0rce 5y ago

If you have some electronics experience you can buy the Plantower sensors that PurpleAir uses and connect it to a microcontroller, there are guides mentioned in the comments here.