According to studies, 9 in 10 homes suffer from air quality issues. While that seems astoundingly high, it shouldn’t be surprising. You might be breathing in dirty air, from irritants like dust and pet dander to more harmful pollutants like radon and air pollution. An air quality monitor is a perfect way to help you breathe better, have healthier air, and test air quality, and most come with a free app for your mobile phone.
With wildfire season especially bad from coast to coast this year, all our air quality monitors will help you monitor air quality inside your home. However, we recommend that you also check out our best air purifiers to effectively clear your air of harmful particulates.
While most of our recommendations below are intended for indoor use only, outdoor air quality monitors can be equally valuable for allergy sufferers. While options here aren’t as numerous, we could find a few options that we think are worthy of consideration.
PM stands for particulate matter, with the number the size measured in microns. Many air quality monitors detect particulate matter in two sizes, PM2.5 and PM10 (these fine particles can be as small as the diameter of a human hair!). Better air quality monitors can also measure PM1 and other pollutants such as VOCs (volatile organic compounds commonly found in household cleaners and cleaning chemicals), CO2, carbon monoxide, and radon.
While they may not be able to detect mold directly, some air quality monitors can alert you to conditions that might make mold growth more likely.
How Our Air Quality Monitor Reviews are Different
Unlike many sites, we test the products we recommend or have direct experience with the company. We test select top air quality monitors for several weeks, giving us critical insight into long-term reliability, something a quick review cannot. You can see our testing protocol here and our rating formula here.
We’ve also developed a 100-point rating system that judges each air quality monitor tested on the same metrics. We judge accuracy (or performance), affordability, durability, feature set, and ease of use. These categories are weighted to emphasize accuracy and affordability, making up half of an air quality monitor’s score.
However, a candidate for the Best Air Quality Monitor for the Home of 2023 can’t only be a great value: it must have accurate measurements, be user-friendly, and have excellent build quality. Our review staff has years of experience using home weather stations and instruments: some of us are degreed meteorologists and scientists. Our writers independently research each device: we do not recommend a device simply because a manufacturer sends it to us.
Our Top Picks
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Best Air Quality Monitors
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Frequently Asked Questions
Below we’ve listed some frequently asked questions we hear from readers on indoor air quality monitors.
Common Pollutants
Are you confused by some of the terms we used above? We suggest checking out the EPA’s website for more information on pollutants. We’ve created this easy-to-follow guide below to help you understand the various common pollutants and how they might risk your overall health.
Particulate Matter (PM)
Particulate matter, or PM, is a mix of particles and droplets in the air. PM can come in various shapes and sizes, but anything less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) is hazardous to your health as you can inhale it. PM2.5 (2.5 microns in size) and PM1 are also commonly measured particulate matter sizes.
Extended exposure to particulate matter, especially PM1 and PM2.5, can cause issues with the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. Symptoms of exposure are shortness of breath and allergy-like symptoms. If you have medical conditions like asthma and heart disease, you should be especially mindful of PM levels in the air.
Common outdoor PM sources include vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and power plant emissions. Indoor sources such as cooking, burning fireplaces, and smoking can also produce PM.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
VOCs can have both short and long-term health effects. While VOCs may be present indoors, concentrations can be ten times higher indoors, the EPA says. Everyday household products like hairspray, cosmetics, cleaning fluids, disinfectants, paints, and varnishes produce VOCs, such as burning wood and natural gas.
Formaldehyde is a common VOC found in many places in the home: many building materials, including plywood, glues, and insulation, contain it, as well as drapes and furniture fabrics.
Short-term VOC exposure causes minor symptoms like throat irritation, nausea, and fatigue. Longer-term exposure can cause more severe respiratory issues and damage the liver and kidneys. Typically VOCs are emitted in larger quantities when in use. However, products may emit smaller amounts of VOCs.
Carbon Monoxide
This odorless and invisible gas is already well-known as a hazardous pollutant. Higher concentrations can cause loss of consciousness and even death, and its victims often don’t realize they’re being poisoned. Even at lower levels, confusion and memory loss can occur.
We strongly recommend that you not depend on any air quality monitor to detect carbon monoxide. The best way to detect carbon monoxide is a carbon monoxide detector. Many higher-end smoke detectors offer this functionality.
Radon
The leading cause of cancer behind smoking in the United States, radon is a naturally occurring invisible colorless gas. It is the byproduct of the naturally occurring breakdown of uranium in soil, rocks, and water and can be found indoors and outdoors. Previously, homeowners must purchase a kit to test for this, which takes about three months and must be shipped to a lab.
The AirThings Wave Plus is currently the only air quality monitor that can test for radon in real time.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
While not as hazardous as some other indoor pollutants, even at reasonably high levels, concentrations of 1,000ppm or more can cause a decline in cognitive and decision-making performance in humans. Carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of human breathing, so in poor ventilation, these levels can quickly reach 1,000ppm or more in the home. Most indoor air quality sensors can measure CO2 levels in the air.
Temperature and Humidity
While not necessarily a pollutant, high temperatures and humidity can cause mold and mildew growth. Some humans are sensitive to mold and mildew in the air, causing allergy-like symptoms.