If you’ve ever wondered how cooking, cleaning and styling your hair can impact the air quality in your home, now is your chance to find out. The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor from Amazon Canada is now 30 per cent off for October Prime Day — giving you the perfect excuse to try it out. The teeny-tiny gadget tracks particulate matter, VOCs, carbon monoxide and humidity in your home, giving you a glimpse at the overall quality of the air and even offering suggestions for how you can improve it. You can also sync the device with your smart ventilation equipment, like fans and dehumidifiers. Read on to find out why reviewers wish they could give it six stars (out of five) and save $27 when you shop the Prime Big Deal Days deal.
Amazon
Monitor your indoor air quality with this “essential device” that provides “invaluable insights for a healthier living environment.”
Why monitoring air quality matters
The quality of the air in your home can be negatively affected by many factors, from the air outside (wildfires, traffic pollution, pesticides) to the products and materials you use inside (tobacco, building materials, household cleaning products, glues, air fresheners, combustion sources like oil, gas and wood).
These pollutants, whether outdoors or indoors, can have a major impact on health. Not only does pollution worsen allergies and asthma, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but it may also increase the risk for stroke, heart disease, chronic pulmonary disease, pneumonia, cataracts and more.
Monitoring your indoor air quality could be one step to help you feel at ease and give you a general sense of the air quality in your home. However, the concrete actions you take to improve the air you breathe are most important — like quitting smoking, reducing chemical use and improving ventilation (opening doors and windows, turning on fans, pushing furniture away from heating systems and outdoor walls) to maximize airflow and reduce humidity.
Designed to track the contents of indoor air, the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor measures five different factors:
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Particulate matter (PM): Potential allergens or irritants
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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs): Unwanted chemicals that can affect breathing
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Carbon monoxide (CO): An invisible and dangerous pollutant
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Humidity: Moisture in the air that can create mould in the home
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Temperature
To use the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor, plug it in, open the Alexa app on a phone or tablet and then add a new device by clicking the “+” icon.
To get a general idea of your air quality, check the colour-coded LED on the device. To get an air quality score, open the app or say “Alexa, what’s the indoor air quality?”
If you prefer, you can set up notifications on your phone or announcements on your Echo device when poor air quality is detected. You can also enable “Routines” with Alex-enabled devices like air purifiers, dehumidifiers and fans to turn off or on when there is a detected change in indoor air quality.
Keep in mind: The monitor does not have a microphone or a speaker to sound an alarm; it must be hooked up to the Alexa app. Also, it is not a substitute for a carbon monoxide alarm or detector.
The device is tiny, measuring just 6.5 x 6.5 x 4.5 centimetres (approximately 2.5 x 2.5 x 1.75 inches).
What shoppers are saying
⭐️ 4.3 stars
💬 400+ reviews
🔎 “Precise, useful and good quality.”
For its affordable price and “impressive” ability to pick up on air quality issues, many reviewers give the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor five stars. One happy customer even says he’s “tempted to add another star” to his five-star rating.
Most importantly, the monitor offers “effective air quality detection.” One reviewer notes that their parents smoked during a visit and the device changed colour to indicate deteriorating air quality. They were able to track changes in the air each hour with “detailed graphs of airborne particles,” which they found “very reassuring.”
Still, some reviewers wish they could “see data such as temperature directly on the monitor.” Instead, they have to go into the Alexa app and scroll through their various devices before they can find the monitor’s data. However, the device’s lack of screen does mean the monitor is “cute and compact.”
The device is also “easy to set up” and reviewers love that they can sync it with fans, air purifiers and dehumidifiers. One shopper uses it in their basement to “trigger the dehumidifier to turn on and off” based on humidity levels. “For this purpose, the sensor works flawlessly,” he says.
Unfortunately, like just about any air quality monitor, there are limits to what this device can track. Reviewers wish it could measure dust, pollen, CO2 and radon. (Note: Radon sensors can be quite expensive.)
Buyers also would prefer a plug that could go directly into the wall socket, instead of the “very inconvenient” USB adapter that’s included.
The verdict
Many reviewers say the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor is a trustworthy little gadget that helps keep their home’s air quality in check. It’s especially handy for triggering ventilation devices like fans, dehumidifiers and air purifiers. Though it does have a few little design flaws, most people agree it provides great value for the price. If you have a multi-storey home, you may want to get a monitor for each floor.
The reviews quoted above reflect the most recent versions at the time of publication.
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