To become aware of your indoor air quality index is to enter a realm where the invisible becomes something you can never unsee. Until I wrote about my quest for good air in my Brooklyn apartment, I didn’t know air quality monitors even existed. Now I couldn’t live without them.
We humans evolved to respond to changes in temperature, precipitation, and wind. Bad air is silent and often odorless, but long-term exposure to certain vapors, particulates, and high levels of CO2 can impact cognition and make us vulnerable to certain cancers, as well as heart and respiratory diseases. Reading the daily temperature and looking at weather forecasts prepares us for what’s to come, but checking your air quality might be the biggest step you make in improving your health.
These air quality monitors were tested in two locations: a 130-plus-year-old Brooklyn apartment with a gas stove in a building that is undergoing construction, and a cabin in the Maine woods that uses an electric stove. There were two cats, a dog, and two people during the entire testing period. I had various air purifiers running at all times. Neither location had central air or HVAC with MERV filters, nor did they have over-stove exhaust fans that could remove fumes to the outside. In both locations, it was cooking on the stovetop that produced the worst air. These monitors were used both on days with excellent outdoor air and days when air quality was in the moderate zone, above 50 on the US Air Quality Index.
For more ways to keep your air quality in check, take a look at our guides to Best Air Purifiers and Best Robot Vacuums.
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Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro
Best Overall
AirVisual Pro Indoor Monitor
I’ve been using AirVisual Pros for the past five years. My first one only began malfunctioning after four years. Made by IQAir, same maker of the Atem X air purifier, the AirVisual had an easy-read 5-inch LCD display screen. The AirVisual’s graphic of a boy’s face along with the AQI color scale lets me know my indoor air quality from across the room. I don’t have to log on to the internet or open an app to know exactly what is in my air.
The AirVisual has the added feature of giving both indoor and outdoor readings. This saves me the extra step of checking the outdoor air quality on my phone. And it cycles through various displays—it has the time, then it will show both indoor and outdoor readings, along with congratulating me for achieving excellent indoor air quality or it will recommend that I open a window. It’s oddly specific. As the air quality gets poorer, the little boy will stop smiling with a green background and become solemn with a yellow background; finally, if the air is truly dangerous, he’ll put on a gas mask and the color turns dark purple. The AirVisual measures PM 2.5 and CO2, and displays the temperature and humidity. It has an easy-to-read dashboard on the app and keeps data for a year, but its biggest strength is its display, especially when I burn a pizza and the boy gets sad and dons a gas mask.
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Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro
Best Display
PurpleAir Touch Indoor Air Quality Monitor
When that apocalyptic orange cloud set over San Francisco in 2020, the crowdsourced air quality index map PurpleAir was the place to see how bad the air really was. PurpleAir’s Real-Time Air Quality Map is created by the public using sensors that PurpleAir sells. It offers two types of outdoor air monitors: the PurpleAir Classic Air Quality Monitor and the PurpleAir Classic SD Edition, which is able to store data without Wi-Fi. The one I have is PurpleAir’s new Touch Indoor Air Quality Monitor. Its simple white oval plastic orb reminds me of a decorative, color-changing night light. The PurpleAir Touch measures PM 2.5. If an air quality monitor can measure only one thing, it should be PM 2.5. PurpleAir uses the same color scale for the US Air Quality Index, or AQI Scale. The Touch’s inner LED ring glows green for good air, yellow for moderate, orange for unhealthy for sensitive groups, red for unhealthy, purple for very unhealthy, and deep violet/maroon for hazardous. Depending on the number of taps of your finger, the glow gets brighter or turns off; it’s adjustable.
PurpleAir told me an app is in the works, but for the moment it’s the PurpleAir website that has its “community scientist”-sourced map. I was confused the first time I looked at PurpleAir’s map, because it included both indoor and outdoor monitors. And while there the specific model of monitor pops up when you click the number, I’m not sure if I care that Zoe’s indoor air quality in Brooklyn is awesome or that Zander must have burned his muffins in Queens. I think including the indoor monitor data on the map muddies the user experience. To find out the actual AQI number that the PurpleAir Touch is reading, you need to register your Touch with PurpleAir and view it through PurpleAir’s web portal. On its Real-Time PurpleAir Map I can see the circle that’s my Touch. There I can see the numbers for my living room. You can choose to be private or public. Looking at the map, I now want to get PurpleAir’s outdoor monitor. And while configuring, registering, and checking a web portal is an extra step, I appreciate the simplicity of the Touch’s color system. The PurpleAir touch also makes a useful night light, though it was too bright for me at its highest setting.