Review on 🏠 PiCO Home: The Ultimate Mini Quality Monitor for Compact Spaces by Bob Fasho

The unit is really quite small and the design is quite good except for the bright LEDs that cannot be turned off and will brighten up your bedroom if left there. The lack of a screen means you really have to use the app to get info from Pico Home. And this app is terrible (I've tried both iOS and Android): you have to reconnect to the device if you leave the app for a short time. It cannot find the device on the local network unless your phone and the device are connected to the same 2.4GHz network. All other devices on my network can communicate with each other without any problems, whether they are connected via LAN, 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands. The app interface is just bad. It looks like a three hour programming job that was never completed. Most importantly, there's no way to record time traces of anything measured by the device (other than a useless 20-second time trace that's constantly displayed in "real-time" mode). CO2 remained unchanged at the minimum value (1 ppm or 400 ppm). It was a bit surprising since I was in a closed room. There can be no question of a manual. There is no description of the calibration procedure. As it turns out, the device has a very primitive self-calibration feature: when exposed to CO2 concentrations lower than what it's seen since it was last turned on, it assumes it's 400ppm. So if you open all the windows for a while, the device will be calibrated, so to speak. As soon as they close again, it suddenly shows you significantly higher CO2 and VOC levels than before you opened the windows - 1000 or even 2000 ppm in my case, which was also unlikely. This "calibration" is lost when the device is unplugged or even seemingly turned off. So suddenly you're back to perfect air quality, which makes the whole idea of measuring meaningless. It also means you can't take useful readings in your office or anywhere else you can't ventilate the entire room to "baseline" the device. The thermometer deviates from other thermometers in the room by approx. 2 K. Humidity also doesn't compare well to other sensors I have, although probably none of them are very accurate either. It really is a completely pointless device. save your money