Smart Air Quality Monitor – Know your air, Works with Alexa

The Air Quality Monitor (AQM) market is horrible for consumers. I settled on the Amazon branded AQM as it was affordable, it seemed relatively decent in regard to what it can monitor, and of course it works with Alexa so there is some added convenience. I should mention that I do not overly rely on digital assistants, I don't really have a smart home but I do have a few devices that have Alexa. I also did some research (mostly on YouTube)on AQM's and most of the affordable options, especially on Amazon, were inaccurate and manipulative. During the fall and winter months in the mid-west something strange happens to the air (there are also a ton of farms within a 10 mile radius of where I reside). It's nice to have more localized idea of what's going on with the air quality. The Amazon AQM does not give many details but it gives you some valuable insight and that's what I want as I do have some troubles with sinuses and allergies. I've only been using it for a few days now and I plan on getting a few more of these AQM's as it has been picking up some air quality anomalies. I'll admit that when these were first released I thought they were gimmicky and another way for Amazon to make money but I kept hearing great things about these little units so I decided to get one to try it out. As for how accurate it is, I really have no idea so I'm trusting Amazon and the unit. The temp and humidity levels seems to be spot on though as it is spot on with my analog and digital weather stations. I would recommend this unit but you have to have Alexa so you can set it up and get updates. If you don't use Alexa, I believe by default it will alert you with light color changes (green, yellow, and red) as to the current air quality. It does not have any other capabilities other than monitoring temp, humidity, particulate matter, CO, and VOC's and then it gives you a air quality measurement based on those five readings.

Ordered the device and had it the next day. I ordered this device to get a handle on our indoor air quality. The motivator of this purchase is the current wildfire pollution effecting many areas of the country and knowing the impact of the winter heating season on air quality. The measured parameters are perfect for this assessment. Carbon monoxide (CO) in particular is a dangerous. As stated by the product description, this device is no substitute for a CO monitor/alarm. What I find interesting is the error some make in not understanding the difference between CO2 carbon dioxide and CO carbon monoxide. CO2 is not a life threatening gas, but CO is! CO2 is produced by the human body as a end product of body metabolism whereas CO is an end product of combustion. Bottom line, elevated CO can kill you within a matter of hours based on how it arrests the carrying capacity of oxygen in the blood. Every home should have a CO alarm! The other misunderstanding is about radon. You measure for it once in your home, if it is high, you install a system to eliminate it. Done. This little device is just what you need to make sure the air you breathe is safe, no more, no less. Newer homes that are built tight for heating and cooling efficiency need a ventilation system to introduce fresh air and eliminate stale air utilizing filtration. An older home such as ours (built 1956) tends to allow air infiltration so there is an element of air exchange at the expense of efficiency. Either way, an air quality monitor such as this device can give you peace of mind. Installation took less than 10 minutes having multiple Alexa devices. Got my 1st report and a green light on the monitor within minutes. I really like the report on the Alexa app and Echo Show. I can access it from my phone as well. Nicely done Amazon. Recommended. Update: 8-2-23 Had this for a few days, very impressed with the overall sensitivity of the monitoring. Examples; 1) was sanding a piece of furniture in the basement one level below the monitor. Within minutes the monitor displayed a yellow light and the monitor readings indicated a moderate elevation in the pm, particulates. This resolved back to a green light, good air quality level, within an hour after I stopped sanding. 2) had our home cleaning service in to do a complete deep cleaning, within minutes of their use of cleaning products (strong smell), the monitor went from yellow to red indicated a high level VOC’s in the air. This too reversed within several hours after the home cleaning was completed. If anything this demonstrates that knowing about changes in air quality in the home can be valuable to help with selection of safer home products and better control of hobbies or habits that create environmental dusts. For me and my health this is a valuable tool to manage home air quality. Update: 8/8/23 Spouse used denatured alcohol in the basement to clean wood table surface. Within minutes of using the chemical, the monitor responded with elevated VOC’s. I noticed the red light on the monitor an hour after use and checked the parameters from the Alexa app. The air quality was poor! VOC’s were in the 90’s. Opened windows on the 1st floor and basement. Within 20 minutes the poor air quality began to reverse. VOC’s were now in the 30’s with moderate air quality and a yellow light. Next time no use of denatured alcohol in the house. Final update/comment 08/20/2023 Overall, very pleased with this device. I’ve read other comments and find some that (I believe) have unrealistic expectations. This is a simple air quality monitor not a laboratory grade instrument. There are established ranges of accuracy but for what you pay this thing is great. As far as it’s integration with Alexa, I find it easy to use, gives me a quick account of air quality, and provides historical information. Graphics are good when using my phone or iPad. If you have concerns about indoor air quality and you use Alexa devices, I don’t see how you can go wrong. Highly recommended.

With all respect to RICE650 and their review of this device... (and I agree with that person on several points) this Indoor Air Quality Monitor is excellent for what it is... a "Smart Air Quality Monitor" that "Works with Alexa". That person's review is simply in appropriate because they are critiquing Amazon for what it has built, and not critiquing the product in so far as what its marketing and documentation states it will do. [note... I am not an Amazon employee, nor is anyone in my family, I have no relation to anyone who has anything to do with this product. I live in Seattle so of course I know people who work at Amazon, but I have never spoken with any of them about this product. My background is in Product Development and Innovation, and as such I am critical of products in many of the same ways as RICE650... that said I try to differentiate my critiques based on what I wanted the product to be, and what the manufacturer of the product claimed the product I purchased was capable of doing.] Here is a This is simply an Air Quality Monitor that allows routines to be triggered when the levels of any of its quality metrics (Temperature, Humidity, Particulate Matter, Carbon Monoxide, or Volatile Organic Compounds) exceed user defined limits. I don't see where any of RICE650's complaints are listed as features the product supports, therefore I find that review to be horribly misleading. - Know your Air: (well.... this is a little overstated because it doesn't monitor every gaseous compound that can be in air... but the most important ones to a majority of people are captured.) - Track and measure: the unit does indeed measure the components it says it does. I have no idea how accurately it does this. Levels are measured, and the data is available to view in Alexa when the device is selected under the grouping of "Air Quality" devices. I can page through data for the last 30 days. - Stay informed: This feature set could be better. But in Amazon's defense, it does not say "we will populate minute by minute data into a spreadsheet or database....". Product messaging states "get an 'indication' of current air quality from the color coed LED, and an easy-to-understand air quality score in the Alexa app anytime." - Get Notifications: "if Alexa detects poor air quality, you can get notifications". Pay attention... IF ALEXA DETECTS... not if the Amazon Smart Air Quality Sensor detects.... it clearly states that Alexa will deliver notifications, which it does. - Enable Routines: I use my Air Quality sensor to collect data, which Alexa monitors, and when the temperature or humidity exceed a pre-set level, Alexa turns on the closet fan for the length of time I have selected in the routing. - Certified for Humans: Meh, I know some humans will feel challenged, the reality is that its pretty darn straight-forward. This last item I will provide a critique on... since the Air Quality Monitor relies on Alexa for triggering notifications, etc.... I will commend that setting the THRESHOLD value (temperature, humidity, etc...) is a poor experience. Alexa provides a slider that users slide left or right to set the particular temperature, etc, when a routine should be triggered. The slider shows the minimum value on the left, and the maximum value on the right. IT DOES NOT show users the currently selected value. Nor do users have the option of using a discreet selection method such as a text entry box, increment up/down buttons, or a number wheel. For this reason the UI is poor. It does not easily allow exact values to be entered, it does not allow the user to see what value has been set until after they attempt to edit the value, and it does not have any accessibility mechanism readily available. I have a new higher-end stackable Washer and Dryer in my home... unfortunately I don't have a laundry room, only a laundry closet. This laundry closet has a solid core door without louvered vents in the door. Air entering the close comes from the 1-1/4" gap under the door at the floor, and it is vented thru a Homewerks Smart Bathroom Fan equipped with Alexa. (Now that product, the Homewerks Smart Bathroom fan... that's a piece of junk when you compare the marketing claims and what you actually get!) Because of the small closet space in which the washer and electric dryer are located, being able to trigger the fan to turn on is a necessity to prevent high humidity, condensation, and the development of mold and mildew. This was the only Air Quality Monitor I could find that was integrated with Alexa at the time I purchased it (March or April 2023), and supported creating simple routines to turn on an external fan when either the humidity or the temperature exceeded my comfort level for the space. It appears to do everything the product marketing and documentation say it will. I've given the product a 4 star rating for Accuracy, because: 1. It does not provide any means by which to check its accuracy / internal calibration (for example, against another device) 2. It does not provide users with clear and easy controls to set exact values for when to trigger a routine. 3. In Alexa > Device Activity History.... it logs data in Celsius and not using Fahrenheit, which is the temperature scale that is my default for Alexa and iOS. All said, if you need a monitor to trigger Alexa routines, it'll probably meet all your needs.

The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor works perfectly. The readings seem very accurate. It was easy to set up and connect to wi-fi. It works wonderfully with Alexa. I have it set to turn on my air purifier when the air quality drops, and it works flawlessly. It is definitely a good value for the price. It gives me peace of mind about the air my family is breathing. The app shows you exactly what the air quality readings are, which is awesome.

Mine lasted less than three years then stopped working. The light on front of it is a on, but there is no data.

I absolutely love this air quality monitor. Setup was seamless—plug it in, connect it to the app, and it was up and running within minutes. No complicated calibration or tech headaches. What really impressed me is how useful and actionable the data is. It tracks multiple key metrics including: VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) Particulate Matter (PM) Carbon Monoxide (CO) Temperature Humidity Overall Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) score The charts and daily/hourly breakdowns make it easy to spot patterns. For example, I could immediately see VOC spikes during certain times of the day and actually connect them to activities like cooking, cleaning products, or ventilation issues. That alone makes this device worth it—it gives you the opportunity to fix things that could slowly make you sick over time, before they become a real problem. Another big plus is how well it integrates into the Amazon ecosystem. Being able to check air quality through Alexa or alongside my Echo devices is incredibly convenient. It feels like a natural extension of a smart home, not a standalone gadget you forget about. Overall, this monitor is: Extremely easy to use Packed with useful metrics Well-designed with clear visuals A great tool for anyone who cares about long-term health and indoor air quality So far, so good—and I highly recommend it 👌 Whether for peace of mind, health awareness, or smart-home automation, this is a solid buy.

I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised by how bad this device is, but in this day and age one expects so much more of consumer devices. Still, Amazon always manages to plumb the depths of software quality for its end users. I say this as both an inveterate Amazon customer (the shopping web site is ugly and brain-dead in many ways, but I live with it), and as a developer who uses Amazon Web Services (their user interfaces are absolutely terrible, but the underlying services are a life saver, and I do all my computing on AWS). I'm a little weirded out by the criticisms of others complaining about things like the USB connector. My complaints with this offering have nothing to do with the hardware. You plug it in and (putting aside minor gripes about the labeling of the button) it works, and unless you move it a lot and break the cable you should never care about the connector. I'm prepared to stipulate that the hardware works pretty much according to specification. What I'm offended by is the software, which renders the whole thing effectively useless. It's way worse than even the quick and dirty one-off apps I write for my own use. That Amazon would release this would be shocking for any other vendor, but Amazon's end-user experience is universally terrible, so I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised. Without going into a multi-page review (and diatribe) about the Air Quality Monitor, I'll make just a few observations, but suffice it to say that this is a frustrating piece of junk. A device that works but is effectively unusable doesn't really work in any reasonable sense. It's as if you buy a car but the driver's seat is facing backwards. Yes, you can drive it, but it's so painful, slow and inconvenient to do so that you would quickly give up on it. First off, Why on earth does this have to live inside the Alexa app? Why do I have to install some gigantic piece of bloatware just to access an air quality monitor? I understand that there may be some internal technical reason why they want to bind all Alexa API-using devices into a common platform, or perhaps Amazon thinks that they can suck/sucker me into buying into the grander Alexa vision now that I've installed the Alexa app, but all this actually does is convince me that I'll never, ever get any sort of Alexa device. The data recorded by the monitor, what I think of as "My" data (but doubtless I signed ownership of it away in the EULA) all all sitting up somewhere in Amazon land, but I can't access it from a browser. Why not? It's not as if I want to access my air quality monitor from a bus stop and so it absolutely must be a mobile app. This is a passive device. I can't use it to turn on my heating. I'm much more likely to want to use it for post-hoc data processing. OK, here are a few comments and problems with reasonable-seeming use cases: * I'd like to be able to track my indoor temperature so as to understand my heating bills and look for anomalies (the same applies to any other metric supported, of course). I fire up the Alexa app (Grrrrr: see above), and select the AQM device (why do I have to keep doing this if I only have one Alexa-compliant device). There's no tabulation of the data, so I have to look at the graph at the bottom of the screen. This has three levels of granularity: Hour, Day, and Week (no Month or Year). I want to look back over a few weeks, so I have to page back through the weeks one-by-one. There's no date range selector as you'd expect for any normal app. Each time I hit the "Previous" button it takes about five seconds to display each successive week. It does this as a bar chart. OK, so I spend (waste) a couple of minutes stepping back in time and see a bright red bar a few months back (let's say three months = 12 weeks/clicks for the sake of argument). Hmmm, that looks like a problem, so I click on the bar to drill into it. Right? Wrong - doesn't work. O, I'm frustrated by this annoying oversight, but I click on the "Day" button to change the granularity of the display, but OH NO, the display teleports me back to the current day. I now have to click the "Previous" button to get to the day in question (again), but now I have to go through seven times as many clicks, each at the cost of another five seconds. I dread to think what might happen if I then wanted to see the hour-granularity data. Yes, I'd have to click 24 * 7 * 12 = times to get back to the hour I care about. Yes, that's a total of 2.8 HOURS of mindless clicking. * Just to add insult to injury from the above, I rest the edge of my hand on the screen (I'm left-handed and my Android tablet is sitting beside me on the desk as I type this - it happens a lot) and it interprets that as my clicking on the "Home button". This doesn't take me to the Home of the AQM app, it blows me right out to the root of the Alexa app. Well, there go my all my hours of clicking. Sigh. * In frustration from all of the above clicking around, I decide that I might just as well give up on the crappy UI, download a spreadsheet of the data and process it myself. Oops, there's no download button. What???? * OK, so there's no spreadsheet export/download button, so I'll google around and look for an API to access the data. Nooooooo! There appears to be no such API. * Sigh, now I'm really sick of this. I'll try and hack it by sniffing the network traffic and see if I can reverse-engineer things and do it the hard way, so I configure my Android device to use a debugging proxy (Charles, in my case), but I then find that Android (and thereby the Alexa app) won't accept the SSL certificate from the proxy, so it refuses to let me do it. * So, now I have no way to access MY data other than to use the Alexa app's UI. I'll try to do the best I can. I look at the temperature graph, which like all of the graphs is an anemic graph with super-thin columns (why?). There's a horizontal line showing the average temperature, but no labels on the Y axis, so you don't get any real sense of what's going on. You look a little closer and think "What's the zero on the Y axis? What do the bars actually mean?" It turns out that you can click on the bars to see the actual data value for any given bar, but the difference in heights is tiny. A quick screen shot and measuring the graph in Photoshop shows that (at least in my case) the "Average" line is 200 pixels up from the bottom of the bars. A little arithmetic reveals that the Y-axis zero is actually set to zero degrees Fahrenheit. Think about that for a minute. This is an INDOOR air quality monitor, but you'd have to have 32 degrees of frost indoors to get a zero-height bar. Differences of a degree or two (say, 68F vs. 70F) make a huge difference to one's level of comfort, but a difference of one degree amounts to only 3.5 pixels. This graph is effectively useless. * The average (mean) of a statistic isn't necessarily a useful statistical measure of what's going on. With air quality you care about the ability of your heating system to regulate your home's temperature consistently and accurately. For measures of pollutants you care about consistently high values (if varying) and major anomalies, so the fact that you can't get the raw data out, or display max/min/SD data on the graphs, make it all even less useful. * The "Week" granularity graph is not defined as the last seven days of data, it's defined as the data since the most recent Monday. Thus, you only get all the data you might want to see on Sunday. Why don't you get to see the last seven days? Why can't you just specify an arbitrary date window as you can on pretty much any other app? OK, enough whining on my part. The hardware for this device is (as far as I can tell) completely reasonable, but the software makes the hardware inaccessible. I was so offended by this that I decided to spend an amount of my time that would have bought this product many times over to try to warn others away from getting it. If you only want to see today's numbers then it's merely slow and annoying, and maybe worth 2.5 stars. If you want to do anything else then it's simply worthless, and the star rating model doesn't go low enough. P.S. As I navigated to the Amazon web site to enter this review I was faced with an ad for this very monitor in the banner ad carousel. Way to go, Amazon, advertising things to me that I've already been dumb enough to buy. It has a little logo graphic saying "Works with Alexa". It should say "Doesn't work without Alexa," or better yet, "Doesn't really work even with Alexa."

I’ve used the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor for over a year now, and here’s what you really need to know. The hardware is solid — compact, well-built, USB-powered (which I appreciate), and it collects a ton of air quality data. That’s really its main selling point — and at this price, it should be. But then things get weird. There’s no dedicated app, no display on the device itself, and even no widget. The only way to check your air quality is by opening the Amazon Alexa app, navigating to the monitor tab, and then reading the data there. It’s clunky and far from user-friendly. Even worse — my Ecobee thermostat can’t integrate with it (and I’m not sure any thermostat can). That’s a huge missed opportunity. Imagine if the thermostat could use real-time air data to activate the fan, ventilation, or cooling in a specific zone — it would make this monitor genuinely smart. The frustrating part? Amazon clearly has the resources to build this out — the hardware is already there. But it feels like the product was launched… and then abandoned. If you want raw data and don’t mind digging for it, this might still be worth it. But if you’re hoping for smart home synergy out of the box — temper your expectations.