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Until I wrote it look up my search for good air in my Brooklyn apartment, I didn’t even know air quality monitors existed. Now I couldn’t live without them. To be aware of your indoor air quality index is to enter a realm where the invisible becomes something you can never unsee.
We humans have 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 it can affect cognition and make us vulnerable to certain cancers, as well as heart and respiratory diseases. Reading the daily temperature and looking at the weather forecast prepares us for what’s to come, but checking your air quality could be the biggest step you take to improve your health.
These air quality monitors were tested in two locations: a 130-year-old Brooklyn apartment with a gas stove in a building under construction, and a cabin in the woods in Maine that uses an electric stove . There were two cats, one dog and two people during the entire test period. I have different air purifiers running at all times. Neither place had central air or HVAC with MERV filters, nor did they have exhaust fans over the stove that could blow the fumes outside. In both places, it was cooking on the stove that produced the worst air. These monitors were used both on days with excellent outdoor air and on days when the air quality was in the moderate zone, above 50 United States Air Quality Index.
For more ways keep your air quality in checklook at our guides to the The best air purifiers and The best robot vacuum cleaners.
Updated January 2025: We’ve added PurpleAir’s Zen Air, Govee’s Smart Air Quality Monitor, and Ikea Vindstyrka; added specification tables; and updated links and prices.
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