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Wired Called Our AirGradient Monitor 'Not Recommended' over a Broken Display

135 points by sklargh 1y ago

ahaucnx 1y ago
Achim from AirGradient here. Good to see that my post has been submitted here. Happy to answer any questions you might have. I spend quite a long time writing this post and it actually helped me to see the bigger picture. How much can we actually trust tech reviews? I am already getting very interesting results from the survey I posted and already planning to write a follow up post.
- jzellis 1y ago
  I think your concerns are legit, but it's not necessarily the reviewer's fault that they're on three deadlines and don't have the time to give your product the care and concern it deserves. It's probably the editor's or the publisher's. I'm a world class writer but I stopped doing it for a living a long time ago. Why? Because as media moved from print to online, the work was devalued. I've worked for 25 cents a word sometimes, which was pretty decent when one 1200 word piece could pay rent back then. Nowadays, writers are offered $25 per article flat with no compensation for rewrites. Staff positions pay badly for too much work but are as coveted as C suite gigs are in the tech world. Maybe more so. So if the reviewer is staff, they might be assigned three or four reviews in a given week on top of other work. If they're freelance, they might have to take on more just to make their rent. This is because your average magazine staffer who's not management pulls about as much as a Starbucks manager, and was ever thus, unless you got in at Vanity Fair or The Atlantic back in the Before Times. It's like when I was reviewing albums for $50 a pop: I'd get a stack of them to review and cue up track one and if I didn't get hooked pretty quick, I'd just pop in the next one. Your device arrived damaged, which is absolutely no one's fault, but your reviewer doesn't have time or honestly impetus to give it a second chance. Not for whatever they're getting paid for that review, which is not much at all. It's just bad luck, is all. And yes, it's not fair and, yes, you're right to complain, but it's not as simple as "tech writer lazy". (And if anyone's response is "They accepted the job, they should do their best at it no matter how little it pays", I'm guessing you've never had to duck your landlord to try not to get evicted before the freelance check you've been hunting up for three weeks arrives. There's a reason I'd rather make a living as a mediocre coder than a very good writer these days - at its worst, the tech industry is more renumerative and stable than the publishing industry is.)
  - tobr 1y ago
    > I'm a world class writer This is awkward, but I think you mean ”I'm a world-class writer”.
    - handoflixue 1y ago
      Be kind. Don't be snarky.
      - redbluered 1y ago
        One of my least liked HN rules. I'm from a culture where good- natured ribbing (snark) is not considered unkind. I rather enjoy snark, whether by me, at me, or just reading.
        skylurk 1y ago
        Snark is well tolerated here, when it's not boring.
        redbluered 1y ago
        HN rule #1: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes Click 'site guidelines' when posting. You'll see. I don't like that rule, but it is a rule.
  - shkkmo 1y ago
    > I think your concerns are legit, but it's not necessarily the reviewer's fault that they're on three deadlines and don't have the time to give your product the care and concern it deserves. It's probably the editor's or the publisher's. You wrote it, you don't get to dodge the responsibility like that. Professional integrity still matters. > It's like when I was reviewing albums for $50 a pop: I'd get a stack of them to review and cue up track one and if I didn't get hooked pretty quick, I'd just pop in the next one. That seems unethical. > There's a reason I'd rather make a living as a mediocre coder than a very good writer these days As coders, we also have an ethical responsibility to pushback against code that will harm people. We need more writers to say no to writing stories with insufficient time/resources to do it ethically same as we need more developers who push back against building unethical products.
- no_wizard 1y ago
  The fact you didn’t include a tired / wired meme feels like a missed opportunity
- mind-blight 1y ago
  Super smart move. I hadn't heard of you folks before, but I'm interested in your product - open source and repairability are high on my list for home monitors. I'm lying in bed awake right now sir to an air quality issue, so it's top of mind. The only thing you're missing for me is radon detection. I just bought a house and tests came in below remediation levels, but the report showed a lot of spikes and variance. So you have any plans for a model with radon detection in the future?
- edent 1y ago
  Ultimately, you shipped a broken product. That points to a lack of QA on your part and, I think, it is fair for a reviewer to point out. Even if you have an exemplary warranty process and easy instructions, that's still a hassle. Not everyone has the confidence or the time to repair simple things. As for the objective/subjective nature of reviews. Are your customers buying air monitors for their 100% precision or for "entertainment" purposes / lifestyle factors? I have a cheap Awair air monitor. I have no idea if it is accurate - but it charges by USB-C and has an inconspicuous display. That's what I wanted it for. It is perfectly fair for a reviewer to point out their personal preferences on something like this. They aren't a government testing lab.
  - 16bytes 1y ago
    If you sell a physical thing, some percentage of them will have defects. That's just a fact of manufacturing. It seems unfair to move to "not recommended" due to a single instance of a hardware failure, especially if the manufacturer made it right. And repair-ability is one of their core values! At most this should've triggered a "this happened to me, keep an eye out if this seems to be a thing." note in the review instead of moving to not recommended.
    - edent 1y ago
      If you got food poisoning from a restaurant, would you recommend it to your friends? After all, food-borne pathogens and poor hygiene are just a fact of life. How about if they gave you a voucher for a free drink to say sorry? Reviewing products is like interviewing people. You have to go by what you see on the day. Your can't review (or interview) based in what could have happened; only on what did.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        Yes, if it happened once. If I get food poisoning every time, probably not. Perfection is impossible, I am reasonable and mindful of the challenges of consistency. Hardware device arrives damaged or non functional? I’m just going to call and ask for another one. If it’s a critical need (I cannot wait for a return and delivery cycle), I’m buying more than one upfront. Spares go in inventory.
- philipwhiuk 1y ago
  > Another Monitor: Recommended, despite having no display at all Isn't this an outdoor one. Outdoor ones aren't expected to have a display because you want to check them without going outdoors. This seems reasonable.
  - ahaucnx 1y ago
    No, this is actually the purple air indoor monitor which has no display.
- pwg 1y ago
  From your "pop out" in the article: "is that this review is ... pretty much purely based on the personal preferences of the author." You've found the core takeaway about nearly all "product reviews" in nearly all publications. They are almost all simply "the personal preferences of the author". These authors have neither the time, nor the science skills, for anything even beginning to look like a rigorous scientific review, and so the "best" vs. "ok" vs. "not recommended" tags applied result because the author liked the particular shade of pink used on a trim piece on one, or liked that another one looks like the Apple computer they are using, and so forth. But they are never based upon any objective criteria, and are never (nor ever were intended to be) reproducible in any scientific fashion. Yet, as you say, they have "great power" to influence buying decisions on the part of folks who read their reviews.
  - bryant 1y ago
    > But they are never based upon any objective criteria, and are never (nor ever were intended to be) reproducible in any scientific fashion. This is also why review aggregators exist: if I'm just getting into a thing, such as watching movies or buying appliances, I probably need a general sense of how people collectively feel about a thing. But if I'm keenly aware of my preferences, it helps me to find reviewers who align with how I think. People routinely seek out specific reviewers or specific publications for this reason. For instance, someone reading this review might conclude "I really appreciate that ease of use is a topic that's front of mind with this reviewer." Another reviewer's focus might be customizability, and they might recommend AirGradient. And that reviewer's audience follows that person likely because those concerns are front of mind. ...to be honest, if AirGradient had responded more along those lines ("we prioritized X and Y. We understand if this isn't the best fit for customers looking for Z, but we're working on it"), it would've felt more empathetic and less combative to me.
- axus 1y ago
  Is Wired really the first place people think of for this kind of product review? Which sites and publications would you recommend, and which have are biased for financial reasons?
  - cestith 1y ago
    I for one would reach for Consumer Reports well before Wired for recommendations. I might still read the review at Wired for the details and decide for myself what’s important rather than their recommendation.
- ahaucnx 1y ago
  A few thoughts from me on the discussion so far, which I find incredibly insightful. Many thanks to everyone sharing their perspectives. I truly appreciate it. On subjective reviews: I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with reviews based primarily on an author's subjective opinion. However, such reviews should be appropriately labeled. For example, "My Favorite Air Quality Monitors" rather than "The Best Indoor Air Quality Monitors". The title sets reader expectations for objective evaluation with consistent methodology. On the defective display: Important clarification: we did not ship a broken device. The display issue developed during the review period—this wasn't a QC failure on our part. Hardware can fail during use (as it can with any electronic device), which is exactly why we immediately offered replacement parts, a new unit, and detailed repair instructions when we learned about it. On the tiny display and lessons learned: We're well aware that opinions on our display vary significantly, as evidenced by this discussion. Some users love it, others find it too small. We actually have differing opinions within the AirGradient team as well. We're planning a refresh of our indoor monitor next year and are currently testing around 10 different display types—including e-ink, colour OLED, touchscreens, and others. So far, we haven't found the ideal replacement, but we're planning to involve our community later this year to gather feedback on the various options.
  - pwg 1y ago
    > For example, "My Favorite Air Quality Monitors" rather than "The Best Indoor Air Quality Monitors". The title sets reader expectations for objective evaluation with consistent methodology. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. There have now been so many review articles for so very long titled "Best X" when the nature of the review is "... in the subjective opinion of the review author" that it is unlikely anyone views a "best X" article as having any objective evaluation or rigor behind it at all. Your suggestion would be nice to enforce, but there's no way to get that ship back to port to change its course now.
  - redbluered 1y ago
    eInk. I hate blinking lights in a bedroom.
- jjulius 1y ago
  First, the thing I'm not really seeing mentioned anywhere here in the HN comments is that a separate AirGradient sensor was #3 on the list of "recommended" sensors, and was specifically called "Best Budget Quality Air Monitor". I also can't seem to find this mentioned in the piece that you wrote, either. Why not highlight that success? You write: >How can a product be penalized for a failing display when another recommended product has no display? This is an incredibly perplexing take. A display is subjective - whether or not the customer wants one is up to the customer. What the customer does want is a functional product, so regardless of what another product's features are, if that product functions as intended and yours does not, of course it's going to be recommended over yours. >How can an indoor monitor without CO2 sensing - essential for understanding indoor air quality - be recommended over one that includes this crucial measurement? Again - the products without CO2 sensors functioned as intended. It is indeed accurate that CO2 is one of the most critical metrics for assessing indoor air quality, but it goes back to my previous comment - perhaps the customer is more interested in PM2.5 indoors than CO2 for a specific reason. We don't know. Ultimately, the CO2-less sensors functioned as intended, whereas yours did not. You go on to say: >And specifically for situations like this: How would you want us to handle it? Should companies stay quiet when review methodology breaks down? Should we be more aggressive in calling this out? Or is transparency and open discussion the right approach? Maybe focus less on one review and more on improving the product? As another comment states, you shipped a broken product and it suggests that there's a problem with your QA process. Further, you state early on: >Let me be clear: this was a legitimate hardware failure, and we take full responsibility for it. As soon as we learned about the issue, we immediately sent replacement parts and a new unit, including repair instructions, as repairability is one of our core differentiators. Let's maybe hear more about that. How/why did the hardware fail? Did you examine your QA process and make any improvements to it? Highlight these steps, as well as the "core differentiator" that is your repairability, rather than asking perplexing questions about why one reviewer didn't like your product. As an "average Joe" customer in this area, the whole response feels excessive and... whiny (driven by the fact that you don't highlight that you did, in fact, have a product on the list that was well recommended). I don't say that to be terribly mean, it's just a bit off-putting. You're not necessarily wrong about product reviews like this in general, but like... who cares? Put the effort into making a solid product, not taking umbrage with one person's opinion. There will be more reviews, and some of them will be negative. You're not going to be able to control perception and opinion, and nobody will ever get perfect marks from everyone. Learn to be OK with that. Edit: I just saw your response about this not being a hardware failure when shipped. Still, the general concept of my point remains - detail what you're doing to determine how this happened and prevent it in the future, rather than griping about the review process. If "transparency is how [you] operate", lemme hear the deets about this issue!
- redbluered 1y ago
  I have your product. I like your product. I like your company. Fundamentally, I can't disagree with the review. You got unlucky, and the reviewer was looking for a different product. It happens. It's not a universal product. Competitors have upsides and downsides, and different people want different things. I think this is the time to move on, and focus on people so like and appreciate you, and not dwell on those who don't. Success brings more of both, and if you can't handle a few haters, you probably don't want to be too successful. And reviews are imperfect, but a lot better than no reviews. Accept life isn't perfect. Thanks for a great product and for running a company with integrity.
- liminal 1y ago
  Will your device measure hydrogen sulfide levels?
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Wired sold-out to Condé Nast long ago. They're the tired ones. This sounds like something Louis Rossmann should cover as a counter-example of mfgrs trying to do the right thing but fickle, corporate reviewers behaving in a petty, unfair manner.
- ahaucnx 1y ago
  Agree. I actually tried to reach out to Louis Rossmann a few times but haven’t got a response (yet). I think what’s most interesting is that we figured out a business model based on open source hardware that’s sustainable. Thus a win-win for the manufacturer and the customer. Repairability was actually a feature we design into the product from the start.
  - newsclues 1y ago
    Oh you totally need to send him a diy kit to assemble for a video!
- luma 1y ago
  The reviewer bought the product and received a broken unit. Why is it unfair to write about their actual experience with the product? Sure, warranty exists but none of the other products being tested needed a warranty cycle. AirGradient (and several commenters here) feels like they're trying to spin their own QC problems as an indictment of modern journalism.
  - derbOac 1y ago
    What have we learned about AirGradient improving their product in response to the review? That they "immediately sent replacement parts and a new unit, including repair instructions, as repairability is one of our core differentiators". That's good, I genuinely respect that. But are there going to be improvements in QC protocol? Consideration of a bigger display? Apparently not, or at least there's no mention of this. Instead they launch into a distracting and unproductive discussion about reviews in general, missing the entire point of the review's critiques and an opportunity to make a better product, or at least to clarify why they don't see a need for better QC, or don't think a bigger display would be a good idea.
nati0n 1y ago
To anyone else reading, I would recommend, AirGradiant is the only real contender that checks all the boxes for an air monitor. Love the way they spun this narrative.
- dgllghr 1y ago
  I agree. I love my AirGradient monitor. I’ve had it for years and it still works wonderfully.
- lokar 1y ago
  Have both the pro and the outdoor, both have been great.
- redbluered 1y ago
  What about Apollo Air? I have one of each, and they both check all the boxes. I don't even have a preference. They both seem nearly ideal, depending on context.
cinntaile 1y ago
I checked out the Wired article. Not recommended seems to mostly be about the fact that it's a tiny display, which some people (like the reporter) will have trouble to read. That the screen degraded didn't help of course. The reporter doesn't want to use a web dashboard to check out the readings on his indoor air monitor. I think that's a fair comment, maybe just a bit harsh to put it in the not recommended bucket. I understand that this can affect sales quite a bit for a small supplier like AirGradient. It's linked in the article but here it is. https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-indoor-air-quality-monitors/ https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-indoor-air-quality-monito...
- floppyd 1y ago
  > However, the reviewers logic is difficult to follow when you compare it across products: > - Our monitor: Downgraded due to a faulty display (a warranty-covered hardware issue). > - Another Monitor: Recommended, despite having no display at all. > - Another Monitor: Also recommended, despite lacking a CO2 sensor—one of the most critical metrics for assessing indoor air quality and ventilation.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
    The problem with that "no display" example is that the monitor isn't failing to do a thing they're trying to do, which AirGradient's did in the reviewer's perspective. It's not a failure that the one without a display doesn't have a display. It's a design choice. The AirGradient unit has a display, but it's tiny and hard to read. Scrolling through the article, all the other units with displays have much larger and more readable text. You can read the biggest data points from across a room. The AirGradient has a display, but it fails to be a good display, hence the reviewer's perspective - it's not living up to its goals.
    - newsclues 1y ago
      I have an air gradient monitor. There are three outputs. LEDs that go from green to yellow or red. The small display. A webpage dashboard. Or you can plug the data into HA for whatever you want. The only issue I have with the display is that it’s monochrome and that prevents making data easy to read the trends, by showing positive changes as green or negative ones as red. If the display is too small the LEDs are easily visible for quick information and then the dashboard is for more data. Reviewers often have their issues really understanding how people use products, often because rapidly changing things to review, doesn’t allow them the time to truly use and understand a product.
justusthane 1y ago
Not exactly on topic, but does anyone else feel that the bolded key phrases actually makes it harder to read? I find my eyes jumping between them without absorbing the rest of the text.
- philipwhiuk 1y ago
  > I find my eyes jumping between them without absorbing the rest of the text. That's the idea. The caveats they don't want to you to remember are left unbolded.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  It's marketing, they need you to remember their key phrases more than they need you to read their full rebuttal. They don't seem to be as interested in the fact their outdoor monitor was the recommended outdoor solution either.
rjkingan 1y ago
I own several AirGradient monitors and have used other brands in the past. As far as I am concerned AirGradient is clearly superior, not only for ease of use, repairability and their open source approach, but also because of their tremendous enthusiasm for getting accurate data and being totally transparent about the strengths and weaknesses of the technology.
holografix 1y ago
I wouldn’t worry too much tbh if I was Airgradient. I don’t think anyone trusts Wired for serious tech reviews and the target audience would veer towards plug and play crowd anyway. My airgradient monitor has been online for years and sending data to Prometheus reliably. I’ve been able to plot the air quality across a few climate events and the introduction of a Samsung air filter in my bedroom. It’s a good little product.
captainreynolds 1y ago
I have one of these AirGradient indoor units. I also have a dedicated RadonEye Bluetooth device and Airthings wave Pro. The oled display is nice, but I rarely care in realtime what the exact metrics are. I have that stored as time series stats sso I can see trends over time. Exactly like I do for metrics of production systems in SRE life. The unit also has a series of LEDs across the top and I can read the actual status from 20’ away (which is as far as I can get without going out a window or around a corner). One green led? Good. Two green leds? Meh. Three LEDs? They’re red now and that’s not great Single red led in the top left in addition to any on the right? Spectrum is having yet another outage (no internet) No LEDs? Not powered on Reviewer was overly severe and did his readers a disservice. It’s better imho than my Airthings wave pro, and it lets me get awesome, actionable time series data. It’s sensitive enough to show air quality taking a dive overnight with two people and multiple pets breathing in the same room (one green during the day, three or four red at night), and also to show that adding a half dozen spider plants keeps co2 well in check (consistent one green led). And I can read the air quality from across the room without getting out of bed.
- GeekFortyTwo 1y ago
  Yeah, gamified air quality on my wife accidentally on installing this. She really wanted to see green on the LEDs. Also drove home the fact that using a gas stove hits the air quality in the house for an hour or two, that's now on the replacement list. The fact that I can keep using this even if the vendor goes out of business was a major selling point, but also home assistant integration. I highly recommend these(I have an indoor and outdoor units)
Havoc 1y ago
Rotten luck but at the same time reviewers review the device in front of them. They can’t really throw that experience out on the basis of some assumption that it’s not representative
thomassmith65 1y ago
This is an immature response which comes across as "Indoor Air Quality Monitor" populism. A more professional response would just stick to the facts rather than trash the reviewer and pontificate on what is wrong with journalism today.
Jgoauh 1y ago
There seems to be a trend of companies attacking reviewers and claiming their feelings got hurt when they dislike the review, Nothing CEO is reacting to reviews on youtube, Rabbit R1, the Humane AI pin, Fisker cars, and not AirGradient i guess.
glonq 1y ago
I pretty much assume that all product review sites are at worst crooked and at best biased. Is there a "meta review" site like metacritic, but for products?
- encom 1y ago
  If there is, expect it to be crooked too. Online reviews have been astroturfed to death. It's over.
ratelimitsteve 1y ago
I don't think any of this review is unfair. Shipping a broken product and then covering the fix with your warranty is better than shipping a broken product and telling the consumer to get bent, but worse than shipping a working product. A product that advertises fewer features and delivers them is better than a product that advertises more features and doesn't deliver them. Even in the case of the CO2 sensor, it may be your opinion that a CO2 sensor is critical and can't be done without, but the review is for the feature set at the price point. A device that does fewer things can be a better device depending on price point and, again, reliability. If, however, I concede the author's idea that reviews must have objective criteria, methodology and standards in order to be taken seriously then I'd like to propose the first objective criterion: broken out-of-the-box === not recommended. edit: evidently the device failed after a few months. This doesn't change my final opinion, which is in total agreement with the review, but it deserves to be mentioned because I was incorrect in my facts. For my fellow JS devs, I'm standing by broken out-of-the-box === not recommended, and adding broken within a few months of installing == not recommended.
- beAbU 1y ago
  I did not pick up that the device was broken when it was sent out from the article. It failed "After using the monitor for a few months".
  - thmsths 1y ago
    That is still not good, devices tend to follow the bathtub curve, so if it took only a few months for it to fail, they either got really unlucky OR the device is highly unreliable.
    - jesol 1y ago
      I don't have hard data, but I own 3 air gradients and they've been going strong for years. I don't think it's unreasonable to think they just got unlucky
      - 1y ago
voklem 1y ago
Shipping them a product with a broken display implies shoddy manufacturing and crap quality control. Any other customer could end up buying this substandard product too, and being disappointed by the lack of workmanship. Why not take responsibility for that instead of complaining about an honest review?
- Marsymars 1y ago
  > Shipping them a product with a broken display implies shoddy manufacturing and crap quality control. Eh, what? I've received products that needed warranty repair/replacement from Apple, Toyota, Philips, Nintendo, Ikea, Breville, etc. (All of those examples which provided good service in repairing/replacing the product in question.) A single data point of a broken product doesn't tell you anything of value.
- starky 1y ago
  The review clearly states that the screen failed after a few months. How exactly do you expect them to QC an issue like that? If the part arrives at your factory in full working order, you don't typically spend much time trying to make it fail unless you discover that there is a latent issue that affects a large enough proportion of those parts where the cost of screening becomes worth it. Every volume product has failures and a single datapoint is not enough to say anything about a product's quality (good or bad). At the same time, a failure during a review is absolutely something that should be mentioned, as well as given an opportunity to test the company's RMA process. At the very least a failure like that should cause someone to look into how many other's online have similar issues.
Workaccount2 1y ago
It's seems the disconnect is that the reviewer mostly reviewed on a vibe check while the product is excellent if doing a science check. Given the AirGradient is $100 cheaper than the winning product, I think the review might have been a little harsh.
turtlebits 1y ago
Customers could care less about accuracy if the unit is hard to use. Ie UX, features and price > *.
- encom 1y ago
  How much less?
beAbU 1y ago
My immediate reaction when landing on one of these "top 10 X products" are that the list is sorted according to the size of the kickback the author gets when users click on affiliate links. For the most part I don't believe there is no such thing as a legitimate product review on the internet any more. There is a vanishingly small collection of youtubers that I might still trust when it comes to product reviews, and that list is shrinking.
kasajian 1y ago
The product with fewer features being recommended makes sense if they do those things well. The customer buying it is aware of the limitation, whereas the customer buying your unit getting a broken display is a disappointment. Maybe it was an unfair review, but this comparison is lame.
tkdb 1y ago
Open source performs better, but is less convenient/accessible than a polished consumer product with inferior technical chops? Even ignoring the broken display, which I think is a red herring here (it would be relevant if this unit had a pattern of quality issues or failures indicating systematic production issues), I think that's the story here. I appreciate the response from airgradient, assuming it's all true.
strogonoff 1y ago
I would much rather prefer AirGradient over IQAir AirVision Pro, despite WIRED’s recent evaluation favouring the latter. Source: I “own” (see below) an IQAir AirVision Pro, which I bought directly from IQAir’s website, and I have seen an AirGradient unit in someone else’s home. One reason is, in fact, the screen. AirVision Pro’s display is bright, but it is bright all of the time; it cannot be made dim enough to make it suitable for use in the bedroom, for example: the blueish white LCD is basically a small light fixture. Furthermore, the contents of the screen are well-readable only at a narrow angle (think when you look straight at it; putting it on top of a tall fridge or down on your windowsill makes it illegible). I would much rather prefer an e-ink display. Second, on their website IQAir states that their air monitors are made in Europe[0]. This is a false claim. In fact, AirVision Pro is made in PRC, as it declared on the box. I would not be against a good product made in PRC, and AirVision Pro is in fact known for good cheracteristics regarding accuracy, but it seems like a dark pattern at best, and they clearly want to mislead customers. Third, the enclosure featured a charging USB port (which is an obsolete micro USB variety incredibly hard to find cables for) that was very finicky and gave up the ghost 3 months in. The device just wouldn’t charge its battery or see any power at all thereafter, so it basically became a brick of cheap plastic for all intents and purposes. I can’t be bothered to disassemble the enclosure and try to repair it since I can’t stand the bright screen anyway and I already got the hang of air quality patterns where I live. It did the job, sure, but if AirGradient’s PM2.5 and carbon dioxide detectors do nearly as good of a job[1] it makes it a much more compelling option for me. Unfortunately, as of the time I last checked, AirGradient shipped to a small set of countries which did not include my area; by comparison, IQAir has a much wider coverage. [0] You can still see the proud large “Swiss made” in the relevant section of their website (https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors). Furthermore, if you Google the question, the LLM-generated answer suggests that > The IQAir AirVisual Pro air quality monitor is Swiss-designed and manufactured. While IQAir is headquartered in Switzerland, their manufacturing facilities for air purifiers, including the AirVisual Pro, are located in both Switzerland and Southern Germany which is not true. [1] Perhaps someone can comment on that; I don’t see SenseAir sensors listed on https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table.
nothercastle 1y ago
I have one and I generally agree that the screen sucks, it could really use an upgrade. Also it’s a pain in the a to zero out the co2 sensor the first time. I would probably not recommend it to someone who does not like to dabble a lot with the tech. It’s not really a it just works and it’s easy for everyone product.

135 points by sklargh 1y ago

Achim from AirGradient here. Good to see that my post has been submitted here. Happy to answer any questions you might have. I spend quite a long time writing this post and it actually helped me to see the bigger picture. How much can we actually trust tech reviews? I am already getting very interesting results from the survey I posted and already planning to write a follow up post.

jzellis 1y ago
I think your concerns are legit, but it's not necessarily the reviewer's fault that they're on three deadlines and don't have the time to give your product the care and concern it deserves. It's probably the editor's or the publisher's. I'm a world class writer but I stopped doing it for a living a long time ago. Why? Because as media moved from print to online, the work was devalued. I've worked for 25 cents a word sometimes, which was pretty decent when one 1200 word piece could pay rent back then. Nowadays, writers are offered $25 per article flat with no compensation for rewrites. Staff positions pay badly for too much work but are as coveted as C suite gigs are in the tech world. Maybe more so. So if the reviewer is staff, they might be assigned three or four reviews in a given week on top of other work. If they're freelance, they might have to take on more just to make their rent. This is because your average magazine staffer who's not management pulls about as much as a Starbucks manager, and was ever thus, unless you got in at Vanity Fair or The Atlantic back in the Before Times. It's like when I was reviewing albums for $50 a pop: I'd get a stack of them to review and cue up track one and if I didn't get hooked pretty quick, I'd just pop in the next one. Your device arrived damaged, which is absolutely no one's fault, but your reviewer doesn't have time or honestly impetus to give it a second chance. Not for whatever they're getting paid for that review, which is not much at all. It's just bad luck, is all. And yes, it's not fair and, yes, you're right to complain, but it's not as simple as "tech writer lazy". (And if anyone's response is "They accepted the job, they should do their best at it no matter how little it pays", I'm guessing you've never had to duck your landlord to try not to get evicted before the freelance check you've been hunting up for three weeks arrives. There's a reason I'd rather make a living as a mediocre coder than a very good writer these days - at its worst, the tech industry is more renumerative and stable than the publishing industry is.)
- tobr 1y ago
  > I'm a world class writer This is awkward, but I think you mean ”I'm a world-class writer”.
  - handoflixue 1y ago
    Be kind. Don't be snarky.
    - redbluered 1y ago
      One of my least liked HN rules. I'm from a culture where good- natured ribbing (snark) is not considered unkind. I rather enjoy snark, whether by me, at me, or just reading.
      - skylurk 1y ago
        Snark is well tolerated here, when it's not boring.
        redbluered 1y ago
        HN rule #1: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes Click 'site guidelines' when posting. You'll see. I don't like that rule, but it is a rule.
- shkkmo 1y ago
  > I think your concerns are legit, but it's not necessarily the reviewer's fault that they're on three deadlines and don't have the time to give your product the care and concern it deserves. It's probably the editor's or the publisher's. You wrote it, you don't get to dodge the responsibility like that. Professional integrity still matters. > It's like when I was reviewing albums for $50 a pop: I'd get a stack of them to review and cue up track one and if I didn't get hooked pretty quick, I'd just pop in the next one. That seems unethical. > There's a reason I'd rather make a living as a mediocre coder than a very good writer these days As coders, we also have an ethical responsibility to pushback against code that will harm people. We need more writers to say no to writing stories with insufficient time/resources to do it ethically same as we need more developers who push back against building unethical products.
no_wizard 1y ago
The fact you didn’t include a tired / wired meme feels like a missed opportunity
mind-blight 1y ago
Super smart move. I hadn't heard of you folks before, but I'm interested in your product - open source and repairability are high on my list for home monitors. I'm lying in bed awake right now sir to an air quality issue, so it's top of mind. The only thing you're missing for me is radon detection. I just bought a house and tests came in below remediation levels, but the report showed a lot of spikes and variance. So you have any plans for a model with radon detection in the future?
edent 1y ago
Ultimately, you shipped a broken product. That points to a lack of QA on your part and, I think, it is fair for a reviewer to point out. Even if you have an exemplary warranty process and easy instructions, that's still a hassle. Not everyone has the confidence or the time to repair simple things. As for the objective/subjective nature of reviews. Are your customers buying air monitors for their 100% precision or for "entertainment" purposes / lifestyle factors? I have a cheap Awair air monitor. I have no idea if it is accurate - but it charges by USB-C and has an inconspicuous display. That's what I wanted it for. It is perfectly fair for a reviewer to point out their personal preferences on something like this. They aren't a government testing lab.
- 16bytes 1y ago
  If you sell a physical thing, some percentage of them will have defects. That's just a fact of manufacturing. It seems unfair to move to "not recommended" due to a single instance of a hardware failure, especially if the manufacturer made it right. And repair-ability is one of their core values! At most this should've triggered a "this happened to me, keep an eye out if this seems to be a thing." note in the review instead of moving to not recommended.
  - edent 1y ago
    If you got food poisoning from a restaurant, would you recommend it to your friends? After all, food-borne pathogens and poor hygiene are just a fact of life. How about if they gave you a voucher for a free drink to say sorry? Reviewing products is like interviewing people. You have to go by what you see on the day. Your can't review (or interview) based in what could have happened; only on what did.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      Yes, if it happened once. If I get food poisoning every time, probably not. Perfection is impossible, I am reasonable and mindful of the challenges of consistency. Hardware device arrives damaged or non functional? I’m just going to call and ask for another one. If it’s a critical need (I cannot wait for a return and delivery cycle), I’m buying more than one upfront. Spares go in inventory.
philipwhiuk 1y ago
> Another Monitor: Recommended, despite having no display at all Isn't this an outdoor one. Outdoor ones aren't expected to have a display because you want to check them without going outdoors. This seems reasonable.
- ahaucnx 1y ago
  No, this is actually the purple air indoor monitor which has no display.
pwg 1y ago
From your "pop out" in the article: "is that this review is ... pretty much purely based on the personal preferences of the author." You've found the core takeaway about nearly all "product reviews" in nearly all publications. They are almost all simply "the personal preferences of the author". These authors have neither the time, nor the science skills, for anything even beginning to look like a rigorous scientific review, and so the "best" vs. "ok" vs. "not recommended" tags applied result because the author liked the particular shade of pink used on a trim piece on one, or liked that another one looks like the Apple computer they are using, and so forth. But they are never based upon any objective criteria, and are never (nor ever were intended to be) reproducible in any scientific fashion. Yet, as you say, they have "great power" to influence buying decisions on the part of folks who read their reviews.
- bryant 1y ago
  > But they are never based upon any objective criteria, and are never (nor ever were intended to be) reproducible in any scientific fashion. This is also why review aggregators exist: if I'm just getting into a thing, such as watching movies or buying appliances, I probably need a general sense of how people collectively feel about a thing. But if I'm keenly aware of my preferences, it helps me to find reviewers who align with how I think. People routinely seek out specific reviewers or specific publications for this reason. For instance, someone reading this review might conclude "I really appreciate that ease of use is a topic that's front of mind with this reviewer." Another reviewer's focus might be customizability, and they might recommend AirGradient. And that reviewer's audience follows that person likely because those concerns are front of mind. ...to be honest, if AirGradient had responded more along those lines ("we prioritized X and Y. We understand if this isn't the best fit for customers looking for Z, but we're working on it"), it would've felt more empathetic and less combative to me.
axus 1y ago
Is Wired really the first place people think of for this kind of product review? Which sites and publications would you recommend, and which have are biased for financial reasons?
- cestith 1y ago
  I for one would reach for Consumer Reports well before Wired for recommendations. I might still read the review at Wired for the details and decide for myself what’s important rather than their recommendation.
ahaucnx 1y ago
A few thoughts from me on the discussion so far, which I find incredibly insightful. Many thanks to everyone sharing their perspectives. I truly appreciate it. On subjective reviews: I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with reviews based primarily on an author's subjective opinion. However, such reviews should be appropriately labeled. For example, "My Favorite Air Quality Monitors" rather than "The Best Indoor Air Quality Monitors". The title sets reader expectations for objective evaluation with consistent methodology. On the defective display: Important clarification: we did not ship a broken device. The display issue developed during the review period—this wasn't a QC failure on our part. Hardware can fail during use (as it can with any electronic device), which is exactly why we immediately offered replacement parts, a new unit, and detailed repair instructions when we learned about it. On the tiny display and lessons learned: We're well aware that opinions on our display vary significantly, as evidenced by this discussion. Some users love it, others find it too small. We actually have differing opinions within the AirGradient team as well. We're planning a refresh of our indoor monitor next year and are currently testing around 10 different display types—including e-ink, colour OLED, touchscreens, and others. So far, we haven't found the ideal replacement, but we're planning to involve our community later this year to gather feedback on the various options.
- pwg 1y ago
  > For example, "My Favorite Air Quality Monitors" rather than "The Best Indoor Air Quality Monitors". The title sets reader expectations for objective evaluation with consistent methodology. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. There have now been so many review articles for so very long titled "Best X" when the nature of the review is "... in the subjective opinion of the review author" that it is unlikely anyone views a "best X" article as having any objective evaluation or rigor behind it at all. Your suggestion would be nice to enforce, but there's no way to get that ship back to port to change its course now.
- redbluered 1y ago
  eInk. I hate blinking lights in a bedroom.
jjulius 1y ago
First, the thing I'm not really seeing mentioned anywhere here in the HN comments is that a separate AirGradient sensor was #3 on the list of "recommended" sensors, and was specifically called "Best Budget Quality Air Monitor". I also can't seem to find this mentioned in the piece that you wrote, either. Why not highlight that success? You write: >How can a product be penalized for a failing display when another recommended product has no display? This is an incredibly perplexing take. A display is subjective - whether or not the customer wants one is up to the customer. What the customer does want is a functional product, so regardless of what another product's features are, if that product functions as intended and yours does not, of course it's going to be recommended over yours. >How can an indoor monitor without CO2 sensing - essential for understanding indoor air quality - be recommended over one that includes this crucial measurement? Again - the products without CO2 sensors functioned as intended. It is indeed accurate that CO2 is one of the most critical metrics for assessing indoor air quality, but it goes back to my previous comment - perhaps the customer is more interested in PM2.5 indoors than CO2 for a specific reason. We don't know. Ultimately, the CO2-less sensors functioned as intended, whereas yours did not. You go on to say: >And specifically for situations like this: How would you want us to handle it? Should companies stay quiet when review methodology breaks down? Should we be more aggressive in calling this out? Or is transparency and open discussion the right approach? Maybe focus less on one review and more on improving the product? As another comment states, you shipped a broken product and it suggests that there's a problem with your QA process. Further, you state early on: >Let me be clear: this was a legitimate hardware failure, and we take full responsibility for it. As soon as we learned about the issue, we immediately sent replacement parts and a new unit, including repair instructions, as repairability is one of our core differentiators. Let's maybe hear more about that. How/why did the hardware fail? Did you examine your QA process and make any improvements to it? Highlight these steps, as well as the "core differentiator" that is your repairability, rather than asking perplexing questions about why one reviewer didn't like your product. As an "average Joe" customer in this area, the whole response feels excessive and... whiny (driven by the fact that you don't highlight that you did, in fact, have a product on the list that was well recommended). I don't say that to be terribly mean, it's just a bit off-putting. You're not necessarily wrong about product reviews like this in general, but like... who cares? Put the effort into making a solid product, not taking umbrage with one person's opinion. There will be more reviews, and some of them will be negative. You're not going to be able to control perception and opinion, and nobody will ever get perfect marks from everyone. Learn to be OK with that. Edit: I just saw your response about this not being a hardware failure when shipped. Still, the general concept of my point remains - detail what you're doing to determine how this happened and prevent it in the future, rather than griping about the review process. If "transparency is how [you] operate", lemme hear the deets about this issue!
redbluered 1y ago
I have your product. I like your product. I like your company. Fundamentally, I can't disagree with the review. You got unlucky, and the reviewer was looking for a different product. It happens. It's not a universal product. Competitors have upsides and downsides, and different people want different things. I think this is the time to move on, and focus on people so like and appreciate you, and not dwell on those who don't. Success brings more of both, and if you can't handle a few haters, you probably don't want to be too successful. And reviews are imperfect, but a lot better than no reviews. Accept life isn't perfect. Thanks for a great product and for running a company with integrity.
liminal 1y ago
Will your device measure hydrogen sulfide levels?

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Wired sold-out to Condé Nast long ago. They're the tired ones. This sounds like something Louis Rossmann should cover as a counter-example of mfgrs trying to do the right thing but fickle, corporate reviewers behaving in a petty, unfair manner.

ahaucnx 1y ago
Agree. I actually tried to reach out to Louis Rossmann a few times but haven’t got a response (yet). I think what’s most interesting is that we figured out a business model based on open source hardware that’s sustainable. Thus a win-win for the manufacturer and the customer. Repairability was actually a feature we design into the product from the start.
- newsclues 1y ago
  Oh you totally need to send him a diy kit to assemble for a video!
luma 1y ago
The reviewer bought the product and received a broken unit. Why is it unfair to write about their actual experience with the product? Sure, warranty exists but none of the other products being tested needed a warranty cycle. AirGradient (and several commenters here) feels like they're trying to spin their own QC problems as an indictment of modern journalism.
- derbOac 1y ago
  What have we learned about AirGradient improving their product in response to the review? That they "immediately sent replacement parts and a new unit, including repair instructions, as repairability is one of our core differentiators". That's good, I genuinely respect that. But are there going to be improvements in QC protocol? Consideration of a bigger display? Apparently not, or at least there's no mention of this. Instead they launch into a distracting and unproductive discussion about reviews in general, missing the entire point of the review's critiques and an opportunity to make a better product, or at least to clarify why they don't see a need for better QC, or don't think a bigger display would be a good idea.

nati0n 1y ago

To anyone else reading, I would recommend, AirGradiant is the only real contender that checks all the boxes for an air monitor. Love the way they spun this narrative.

dgllghr 1y ago
I agree. I love my AirGradient monitor. I’ve had it for years and it still works wonderfully.
lokar 1y ago
Have both the pro and the outdoor, both have been great.
redbluered 1y ago
What about Apollo Air? I have one of each, and they both check all the boxes. I don't even have a preference. They both seem nearly ideal, depending on context.

cinntaile 1y ago

I checked out the Wired article. Not recommended seems to mostly be about the fact that it's a tiny display, which some people (like the reporter) will have trouble to read. That the screen degraded didn't help of course. The reporter doesn't want to use a web dashboard to check out the readings on his indoor air monitor. I think that's a fair comment, maybe just a bit harsh to put it in the not recommended bucket. I understand that this can affect sales quite a bit for a small supplier like AirGradient. It's linked in the article but here it is. https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-indoor-air-quality-monitors/ https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-indoor-air-quality-monito...

floppyd 1y ago
> However, the reviewers logic is difficult to follow when you compare it across products: > - Our monitor: Downgraded due to a faulty display (a warranty-covered hardware issue). > - Another Monitor: Recommended, despite having no display at all. > - Another Monitor: Also recommended, despite lacking a CO2 sensor—one of the most critical metrics for assessing indoor air quality and ventilation.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
  The problem with that "no display" example is that the monitor isn't failing to do a thing they're trying to do, which AirGradient's did in the reviewer's perspective. It's not a failure that the one without a display doesn't have a display. It's a design choice. The AirGradient unit has a display, but it's tiny and hard to read. Scrolling through the article, all the other units with displays have much larger and more readable text. You can read the biggest data points from across a room. The AirGradient has a display, but it fails to be a good display, hence the reviewer's perspective - it's not living up to its goals.
  - newsclues 1y ago
    I have an air gradient monitor. There are three outputs. LEDs that go from green to yellow or red. The small display. A webpage dashboard. Or you can plug the data into HA for whatever you want. The only issue I have with the display is that it’s monochrome and that prevents making data easy to read the trends, by showing positive changes as green or negative ones as red. If the display is too small the LEDs are easily visible for quick information and then the dashboard is for more data. Reviewers often have their issues really understanding how people use products, often because rapidly changing things to review, doesn’t allow them the time to truly use and understand a product.

justusthane 1y ago

Not exactly on topic, but does anyone else feel that the bolded key phrases actually makes it harder to read? I find my eyes jumping between them without absorbing the rest of the text.

philipwhiuk 1y ago
> I find my eyes jumping between them without absorbing the rest of the text. That's the idea. The caveats they don't want to you to remember are left unbolded.
jeroenhd 1y ago
It's marketing, they need you to remember their key phrases more than they need you to read their full rebuttal. They don't seem to be as interested in the fact their outdoor monitor was the recommended outdoor solution either.

rjkingan 1y ago

I own several AirGradient monitors and have used other brands in the past. As far as I am concerned AirGradient is clearly superior, not only for ease of use, repairability and their open source approach, but also because of their tremendous enthusiasm for getting accurate data and being totally transparent about the strengths and weaknesses of the technology.

holografix 1y ago

I wouldn’t worry too much tbh if I was Airgradient. I don’t think anyone trusts Wired for serious tech reviews and the target audience would veer towards plug and play crowd anyway. My airgradient monitor has been online for years and sending data to Prometheus reliably. I’ve been able to plot the air quality across a few climate events and the introduction of a Samsung air filter in my bedroom. It’s a good little product.

captainreynolds 1y ago

I have one of these AirGradient indoor units. I also have a dedicated RadonEye Bluetooth device and Airthings wave Pro. The oled display is nice, but I rarely care in realtime what the exact metrics are. I have that stored as time series stats sso I can see trends over time. Exactly like I do for metrics of production systems in SRE life. The unit also has a series of LEDs across the top and I can read the actual status from 20’ away (which is as far as I can get without going out a window or around a corner). One green led? Good. Two green leds? Meh. Three LEDs? They’re red now and that’s not great Single red led in the top left in addition to any on the right? Spectrum is having yet another outage (no internet) No LEDs? Not powered on Reviewer was overly severe and did his readers a disservice. It’s better imho than my Airthings wave pro, and it lets me get awesome, actionable time series data. It’s sensitive enough to show air quality taking a dive overnight with two people and multiple pets breathing in the same room (one green during the day, three or four red at night), and also to show that adding a half dozen spider plants keeps co2 well in check (consistent one green led). And I can read the air quality from across the room without getting out of bed.

GeekFortyTwo 1y ago
Yeah, gamified air quality on my wife accidentally on installing this. She really wanted to see green on the LEDs. Also drove home the fact that using a gas stove hits the air quality in the house for an hour or two, that's now on the replacement list. The fact that I can keep using this even if the vendor goes out of business was a major selling point, but also home assistant integration. I highly recommend these(I have an indoor and outdoor units)

Havoc 1y ago

Rotten luck but at the same time reviewers review the device in front of them. They can’t really throw that experience out on the basis of some assumption that it’s not representative

thomassmith65 1y ago

This is an immature response which comes across as "Indoor Air Quality Monitor" populism. A more professional response would just stick to the facts rather than trash the reviewer and pontificate on what is wrong with journalism today.

Jgoauh 1y ago

There seems to be a trend of companies attacking reviewers and claiming their feelings got hurt when they dislike the review, Nothing CEO is reacting to reviews on youtube, Rabbit R1, the Humane AI pin, Fisker cars, and not AirGradient i guess.

glonq 1y ago

I pretty much assume that all product review sites are at worst crooked and at best biased. Is there a "meta review" site like metacritic, but for products?

encom 1y ago
If there is, expect it to be crooked too. Online reviews have been astroturfed to death. It's over.

ratelimitsteve 1y ago

I don't think any of this review is unfair. Shipping a broken product and then covering the fix with your warranty is better than shipping a broken product and telling the consumer to get bent, but worse than shipping a working product. A product that advertises fewer features and delivers them is better than a product that advertises more features and doesn't deliver them. Even in the case of the CO2 sensor, it may be your opinion that a CO2 sensor is critical and can't be done without, but the review is for the feature set at the price point. A device that does fewer things can be a better device depending on price point and, again, reliability. If, however, I concede the author's idea that reviews must have objective criteria, methodology and standards in order to be taken seriously then I'd like to propose the first objective criterion: broken out-of-the-box === not recommended. edit: evidently the device failed after a few months. This doesn't change my final opinion, which is in total agreement with the review, but it deserves to be mentioned because I was incorrect in my facts. For my fellow JS devs, I'm standing by broken out-of-the-box === not recommended, and adding broken within a few months of installing == not recommended.

beAbU 1y ago
I did not pick up that the device was broken when it was sent out from the article. It failed "After using the monitor for a few months".
- thmsths 1y ago
  That is still not good, devices tend to follow the bathtub curve, so if it took only a few months for it to fail, they either got really unlucky OR the device is highly unreliable.
  - jesol 1y ago
    I don't have hard data, but I own 3 air gradients and they've been going strong for years. I don't think it's unreasonable to think they just got unlucky
    - 1y ago

voklem 1y ago

Shipping them a product with a broken display implies shoddy manufacturing and crap quality control. Any other customer could end up buying this substandard product too, and being disappointed by the lack of workmanship. Why not take responsibility for that instead of complaining about an honest review?

Marsymars 1y ago
> Shipping them a product with a broken display implies shoddy manufacturing and crap quality control. Eh, what? I've received products that needed warranty repair/replacement from Apple, Toyota, Philips, Nintendo, Ikea, Breville, etc. (All of those examples which provided good service in repairing/replacing the product in question.) A single data point of a broken product doesn't tell you anything of value.
starky 1y ago
The review clearly states that the screen failed after a few months. How exactly do you expect them to QC an issue like that? If the part arrives at your factory in full working order, you don't typically spend much time trying to make it fail unless you discover that there is a latent issue that affects a large enough proportion of those parts where the cost of screening becomes worth it. Every volume product has failures and a single datapoint is not enough to say anything about a product's quality (good or bad). At the same time, a failure during a review is absolutely something that should be mentioned, as well as given an opportunity to test the company's RMA process. At the very least a failure like that should cause someone to look into how many other's online have similar issues.

Workaccount2 1y ago

It's seems the disconnect is that the reviewer mostly reviewed on a vibe check while the product is excellent if doing a science check. Given the AirGradient is $100 cheaper than the winning product, I think the review might have been a little harsh.

turtlebits 1y ago

Customers could care less about accuracy if the unit is hard to use. Ie UX, features and price > *.

encom 1y ago
How much less?

beAbU 1y ago

My immediate reaction when landing on one of these "top 10 X products" are that the list is sorted according to the size of the kickback the author gets when users click on affiliate links. For the most part I don't believe there is no such thing as a legitimate product review on the internet any more. There is a vanishingly small collection of youtubers that I might still trust when it comes to product reviews, and that list is shrinking.

kasajian 1y ago

The product with fewer features being recommended makes sense if they do those things well. The customer buying it is aware of the limitation, whereas the customer buying your unit getting a broken display is a disappointment. Maybe it was an unfair review, but this comparison is lame.

tkdb 1y ago

Open source performs better, but is less convenient/accessible than a polished consumer product with inferior technical chops? Even ignoring the broken display, which I think is a red herring here (it would be relevant if this unit had a pattern of quality issues or failures indicating systematic production issues), I think that's the story here. I appreciate the response from airgradient, assuming it's all true.

strogonoff 1y ago

I would much rather prefer AirGradient over IQAir AirVision Pro, despite WIRED’s recent evaluation favouring the latter. Source: I “own” (see below) an IQAir AirVision Pro, which I bought directly from IQAir’s website, and I have seen an AirGradient unit in someone else’s home. One reason is, in fact, the screen. AirVision Pro’s display is bright, but it is bright all of the time; it cannot be made dim enough to make it suitable for use in the bedroom, for example: the blueish white LCD is basically a small light fixture. Furthermore, the contents of the screen are well-readable only at a narrow angle (think when you look straight at it; putting it on top of a tall fridge or down on your windowsill makes it illegible). I would much rather prefer an e-ink display. Second, on their website IQAir states that their air monitors are made in Europe[0]. This is a false claim. In fact, AirVision Pro is made in PRC, as it declared on the box. I would not be against a good product made in PRC, and AirVision Pro is in fact known for good cheracteristics regarding accuracy, but it seems like a dark pattern at best, and they clearly want to mislead customers. Third, the enclosure featured a charging USB port (which is an obsolete micro USB variety incredibly hard to find cables for) that was very finicky and gave up the ghost 3 months in. The device just wouldn’t charge its battery or see any power at all thereafter, so it basically became a brick of cheap plastic for all intents and purposes. I can’t be bothered to disassemble the enclosure and try to repair it since I can’t stand the bright screen anyway and I already got the hang of air quality patterns where I live. It did the job, sure, but if AirGradient’s PM2.5 and carbon dioxide detectors do nearly as good of a job[1] it makes it a much more compelling option for me. Unfortunately, as of the time I last checked, AirGradient shipped to a small set of countries which did not include my area; by comparison, IQAir has a much wider coverage. [0] You can still see the proud large “Swiss made” in the relevant section of their website (https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors). Furthermore, if you Google the question, the LLM-generated answer suggests that > The IQAir AirVisual Pro air quality monitor is Swiss-designed and manufactured. While IQAir is headquartered in Switzerland, their manufacturing facilities for air purifiers, including the AirVisual Pro, are located in both Switzerland and Southern Germany which is not true. [1] Perhaps someone can comment on that; I don’t see SenseAir sensors listed on https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table.

nothercastle 1y ago

I have one and I generally agree that the screen sucks, it could really use an upgrade. Also it’s a pain in the a to zero out the co2 sensor the first time. I would probably not recommend it to someone who does not like to dabble a lot with the tech. It’s not really a it just works and it’s easy for everyone product.