IAQ monitor recommendations

[firenightdance]

Hi, I've just read a load of threads with the goal of finding a decent IAQ monitor. I read a lot by @Poindexter but still somehow missed the name of the Amazon IAQ monitor pictured (look like clear acrylic construction around the "guts" and I think a photo of the screen may be his/her user avatar). Any way to get a link, or even a product ID or name?

I saw the Dylos 1100PRO mentioned. Maybe this can serve as a repository for IAQ monitors people like. I used the search tool but couldn't find a unified thread that listed or reviewed an assortment. Please correct me (and link to the page) if I missed it. Thoughts on the Atmostube Pro or any of those products? I'm looking mostly for particulate monitoring (I'm green at this but looks like I want to be looking at 2.5/10 primarily?)

Thank you.

 

[Ovationcs257]

This is a tough one I have an air things mini and have been happy with it. The app is easy to use.

I'm thinking about getting a second one and think I might go with the Apollo Automation Air-1 as it is open source and connects easy with home assistant but this might not be a great choice as a first monitor if your not into home automation.

On a realistic note I think it creates more anxiety then anything. I have monitor in my daughters room and the VOCs spike only at night which has kept me up thinking I'm a bad parent for not providing a healthier environment. I've installed an erv to bring in ventilation air but this didn't improve the VOC which are low during the day but still spike at night. The question I would ask is if the monitor shows a high reading of some sort how are you going to track down and fix the issue? I'm not saying we should stick our heads in the sand but sometime more information with no way to fix it is just one more reason to keep you up at night. Sorry for my theory session just trying to share my experience.

 

[Rusty18]

This is a tough one I have an air things mini and have been happy with it. The app is easy to use.

I'm thinking about getting a second one and think I might go with the Apollo Automation Air-1 as it is open source and connects easy with home assistant but this might not be a great choice as a first monitor if your not into home automation.

On a realistic note I think it creates more anxiety then anything. I have monitor in my daughters room and the VOCs spike only at night which has kept me up thinking I'm a bad parent for not providing a healthier environment. I've installed an erv to bring in ventilation air but this didn't improve the VOC which are low during the day but still spike at night. The question I would ask is if the monitor shows a high reading of some sort how are you going to track down and fix the issue? I'm not saying we should stick our heads in the sand but sometime more information with no way to fix it is just one more reason to keep you up at night. Sorry for my theory session just trying to share my experience.

What kind of heat do you have?
Gas cook stove?
Running a vaporizer in her room?
Attached garage you park vehicles in?

 

[firenightdance]

I certainly go off-road in other threads, so I don't want to be the thread police here - but there are enough pro/con/usage threads that it maybe we should try to keep this on-topic (actual users of IAQs and their recommendations or criticisms) so we get a fairly concise list where ppl don't have to go through too many pages. Maybe I put it in the wrong forum?

That said @Rusty18 brings up good considerations to figure out what's going on, because it could be as simple as a pretty normal pattern (inside or out) not getting recognized. And @Ovationcs257 I hear you on it being an anxiety generator if you can't nail down what's going on or you start finding out stuff you don't want to. After last year's forest fires I realized I only had so much control over our IAQ...it was really bad inside and out. Clearly you're doing your best as a parent by trying to figure it out. Whether you succeed has more to do with the complexities of the situation and the limits of your expertise in structural and environmental analysis. You're living in accordance with the Confucius quote in your signature, think of it that way...

If it gets concerning and you can't figure it out, outsourcing is an option if you can afford it, but it also may be within what's "normal" or achievable in your area and stressing about it is doing you no good. I don't even want to think about what an IAQ monitor would have said about some places I've lived and worked...

 

[Ovationcs257]

What kind of heat do you have?
Gas cook stove?
Running a vaporizer in her room?
Attached garage you park vehicles in?

We have a gas forced air furnace and gas stove, no vaporizer or vehicles in the garage. The thing I can wrap my head around is the furnace runs all day and we use the stove for breakfast, lunch and dinners randomly but I only get spikes starting around 6-7pm and continue to 12-2am and then it drops. @firenightdance I might be within normal levels it's probably just my control issues wanting it to be perfect.

 

[Rusty18]

We have a gas forced air furnace and gas stove, no vaporizer or vehicles in the garage. The thing I can wrap my head around is the furnace runs all day and we use the stove for breakfast, lunch and dinners randomly but I only get spikes starting around 6-7pm and continue to 12-2am and then it drops. @firenightdance I might be within normal levels it's probably just my control issues wanting it to be perfect.

View attachment 323093

I’d be glad to help troubleshoot this but as firenightdance pointed out that was not the intent of this thread. If you want to work through your voc issues I’d start a new thread and post a link here.

@firenightstick I don’t have a IAQ particulate monitor but I do have a raydoneye raydon detector and a poindexter box. I know one has nothing to do with the other, just putting it out there. The poindexter box definitely pulls visible particulate out of the air and as others with monitors have proven, will pull the fine stuff out with the correct filter. I use mine for particulate control and air circulation in the stove room. I also used it last summer/fall when we had the smoke from Canada blowing in eh. And for anyone needing to monitor raydon I 100% recommend the raydon eye 200. They advertise it as the same guts as their pro model just no calibration certificate. It has been instrumental in reducing the levels of raydon in my house.

 

[Poindexter]

My concise list is very short. I do agree PM2.5 and PM10 are the two major particles to look out for.

I only buy air quality meters that:

A. List the sensors inside the unit
AND
B. The sensor checks out as useful while I am wearing my critical/cynical bifocals.

I do not think a curious individual needs to spend the money on a Dylos 1100. If your homeowner's insurance is denying a claim because you bought your sensor on Amazon, sure, think about a Dylos. I have two of them sitting on a shelf that I am willing to part with for less than I paid, plus shipping from Alaska. I have one with data logging, the other without.

I have a fair amount of respect for the Plantower S-50 series particle counters. That is an actual google-able sensor that goes inside a finished particle counter. Besides a sensor, a finished particle counter needs a display, a power supply, and a small bit of processing power to convert bitstream from the sensor to pixels on the display. If you have a Raspberry or an Arduino already you can buy a bare Plantower S50 to hang off it, and find software to match your display on a microcomputer forum in about 0.0034 seconds. Just wire it up, load up the sketch and watch the display.

In fairness, besides passing the critical/ cynical bifocal inspection, I have run 4 of the Plantower S50s side by side with my pair of Dylos'. I find the Plantower S50 tracks within 1-2% of a Dylos for PM2.5 counts between 6 and 200 mcg/m3. Less than 6 mcg/m3 is excellent AQ. Above 200 mcg/m3 you should be able to tell you have an AQ issue just from your nose and your eyes. FWIW mine are all Plantower model PMS5003. There are several members in the S50 family.

All of the smoke detectors in my home are dual equipped with 'smoke' and 'carbon monoxide' detection circuits. The 'smoke' circuit is a fairly unsophisticated particle counter. When it detects enough particles in the air, it alarms. The 'carbon monoxide' circuits, first generation, actually used a sensor that measured the amount of oxygen in the air. When oxygen dropped, the circuit ass-u-me-d CO or CO2 was increasing, and alarmed. New production smoke/CO detectors, I don't care what sensor they are using. These devices save lives.

Besides PM2.5 and PM10, I find the NDIR technology for CO2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondispersive_infrared_sensor ) passes the critical/cynical bifocal test.

If you want to measure your CO2 levels in the house, especially in a tightly built home, there is a handful of NDIR CO2 sensors out there. If you know what sensor the mfr put in the product you can read up on the sensor and make up your own mind. If the mfr is not telling you what CO2 sensor is inside the product, just selling you NDIR tech without telling you which sensor, I wouldn't buy it. Wouldn't even consider it.

As of today, January 2024, there is no consumer grade/price VOC or formaldehyde sensor that passes my critical/cynical bifocals. There is some promising tech out there, but repeatability, calibration, is a hurdle not yet cleared. If you really need to measure your VOCs I think you need to leave a credit card in the safe at your local "Fire and Safety" store to rent a sensor/ data logger combo in the $3k to $5k range for $50-100 per day. I trust the PID (photoionization detection) and TDL (tunable diode laser) sensors, if the calibration certificate is current and the unit is not physically damaged.

If you have a product next to your baby's crib today, it cost less than US$2000, and is displaying "VOC" as a value, I am 100% confident the unit is actually monitoring the presence or absence of some gas other than formaldehyde or methane, and making assumptions on a lookup table somewhere in the software that may or may not be correct for your situation.

@Ovationcs257 , the "VOC" graph above looks to me like it could very well be CO2, esp if the ERV kicks on at 0200. My first step in your shoes would be to choose a product with a known NDIR sensor for CO2 and see how well the CO2 counts track with the displayed VOC graph. In 900sqft I have to run my HRV 40 minutes per hour on low when it is just me here, when the wife is home I have to run the HRV on medium/continuous to keep the CO2 levels down in the green zone.

As far as the 'acrylic box from Amazon' (very fair, BTW) there is no one consistent vendor. I think this started out as lone 14 year old on the back porch with one microcomputer. Once he had his code working, he built ten of them. Might be a girl, no offense. Sold ten in like 4 minutes. Bought a small wave solder pond, built 20 more. Had to hire a sibling to populate the bare PCBs. Hired another sibling to make the very simple cases. Kept selling product. Probably has a few k sqft under lease now for the factory. The fastest way to find the product on the big river website tonight was to search on "Plantower Air Quality", click on the acrylic box, and then select the other product with the CO2 detector on it. I do notice the current text does not include "SensAirS8" as the CO2 detector, but the possibly out of date pictures still show a SensAirS8 sensor mounted. This is a google-able sensor device, and the big river's return policy is pretty good. The temp/RH sensors on these devices are not very fabulous; but for the price, I don't care.

Good luck and best wishes.

 

[firenightdance]

Thanks for all of this @Poindexter! I often feel like I'm reading Le Carré with your posts, I can be slow with uptake/comprehension when the information is unfamiliar, and there's a lot there. I think I have my head around it and some Googling will help. Thanks for sharing the knowledge. I have no experience with those microcomputers but it's time I get my head around them since it'll overlap with other stuff I like to mess with.

I own a few devices in where you assemble and install into laser-cut clear housings (e.g., transistor/diode testers) so that's why I thought it might be one of those types of things...

@Rusty18 thanks for the info, we have a radon abatement system here b/c we were high at some points, but I am going to be spending a lot of time in the basement soon and I would like to monitor so I'll check that thing out. BTW I lol'd at "firenightstick" (intentional or typo, either way funny)

 

[Rusty18]

Um that would be a typo..
As long as you laughed.

 

[Poindexter]

I often feel like I'm reading Le Carré with your posts,

Thanks for that; he was one one of my favorites as a younger man, back when I had rotator cuffs that worked 100%.

One, I can only do pull-ups on a few branches of the technology tree. If you want to configure your smartphone to replace all the remotes in your home theater system I am not the guy to call.

Two, all of these sensors have a service life expectancy. I have a gang of four Plantower s50 that all came to me in the same box from that big river. All four still track well with my very low hour Dylos', and all 4 still track well with my newest acrylic box unit that includes a SenseAirS8 CO2 detector along with a new Plantower S50 particle counter.

Sooner or later the older units are going to start drifting in their counts compared to the other counters. Or maybe the one I have with the CO2 counter will drift from the other 4, since I have been measuring CO2 a lot lately. Either way, these units are more like spark plugs and less like cribbage boards. They are going to wear out someday.

The main thing I like to do in my living space is measure a lot to figure out what the problem is, build a solution, measure a lot to test the solution. Once there seems to be an effective solution, spot check but otherwise minimize wear and tear on the sensors while the solution is running. This is exactly how I came up with the Poindexter box, and exactly how I know what settings I need on the HRV.

I could go spot check right now, but there is no reason to. I did a spot check about 4 days ago when local I had pretty terrible outdoor air quality. Not only was my indoor CO2 level good, but my particle counts were also very good, demonstrating the filtration on my HRV intake is still working just fine. I will likely spot check again on Tuesday when we are forecast to have really terrible outdoor air quality again. In this situation I am more concerned about PM2.5 and PM10 making it through the intake filter on the HRV than I am concerned about indoor CO2 being elevated.

Finally, the posted 'VOC' graph looks to me like CO2, with the following caveats. It looks to me like the 'VOC' graph starts climbing 'faster' when CO2 could be expected to reach the yellow zone, 700/800 up to 1000 ppm, and then the 'VOC' line really takes off when CO2 could reasonably be expected to reach the red zone >1000ppm.

If I parked a reliable NDIR CO2 sensor next to that device, I would look for the 'VOC' to start going up faster when CO2 hit 700-800 ppm and for the 'VOC' to start going up really fast when the CO2 hit 1000ppm. This is the fundamental problem with marketing 'advanced software,' as opposed to the product actually doing what marketing says it is doing.

The fundamental solution, within a living space, to both accumulating VOC and accumulating CO2 is increased exchange between indoor and outdoor air with increased ventilation. The trick is managing incoming particles while pumping out CO2/VOC.

Wasn't trying to highjack the thread, just trying to be thorough.

Peace out.

 

[firenightdance]

>Wasn't trying to highjack the thread, just trying to be thorough.

The Le Carré was meant as a backhanded compliment, appreciate the thoroughness. Plus there were brand names/products in there so completely on topic. Keep 'em coming if anyone has any others they like...