Review on Formaldehyde Particulate Pollution Restaurants Hospitals by Jeff Leu

Overview. My first impression is that this monitor works well. If you just want a no-frills device to check air quality from time to time, this could be for you. However, it's fairly basic and has a few minor downsides. Fuller Review: The product arrived in a small box with an instruction manual, a small pouch and 4 Duracell AA batteries. As soon as I put the batteries in, the screen would light up and postpone the 20 second countdown to the initial "warm up". After the countdown, it took about 20 seconds for the particulate matter (PM2.5 etc.) reading to stabilize and about another minute for the rest to settle down. According to the manual, TVOC, HCHO and eCO2 sensors require additional warm-up time. Based on my limited testing, the monitor responds to environmental changes in a predictable manner. In the middle of my living room, all particulate matter (PM) levels were in the range of 5-10 micrograms/m3 (see note below on units), which is considered 'good'. As expected, when I placed the monitor right next to my HEPA air purifier, all PM levels dropped to exactly zero. When the monitor was taken outdoors where there was a thin haze from ongoing wildfires, PM readings rose to over 50 micrograms/m3. That reading was surprisingly close to what nearby (probably professional) air quality monitors were reporting. Can't say much about the other sensors, but when I exhaled at the monitor the eCO2 jumped, so that's it. The temperature sensor also matched my thermostat. Now for the not so good stuff. I'll just name three things that strike me: (1) The device displays the wrong units for particulate matter. The monitor reports PM values in micrograms/cm3 when they should be micrograms/m3 (as stated in the manual). I suspect this is basically a typo. (2) The device has minimal functionality. You can do two things: turn on/off and view the measurements. That's all. There is no save function or fancy graphics here. Connect to your smartphone? Forget it. (3) It doesn't matter, but I wish this thing had a built-in rechargeable battery. The AA batteries are fine, but I wouldn't want to bother replacing them. I'd say (2) and (3) are a decent compromise given the price, but the unit error for PM values is a bit confusing. If you can live with those issues, I'd say buy it.