Qingping Air Monitor Lite, Apple HomeKit Compatible Wi-Fi Indoor Air Quality Meter, Detects PM2.5, PM10, CO2, Temperature and Humidity

I have an air purifier and I always wanted to see if the values on it were correct. After buying this AQ monitor, I realise that my air purifier readings were correct. I dont keep it running on all the time as this would lower its durability. It is very quiet and does the job and CO2 readings look accurate. It goes down when I open the windows or goes up when i breathe into it or if my partner and I have been in that room for a while with windows shut.

I bought this because it was half the price of the Aranet4 and I am impressed with it so far. The CO2 readings seems to be in line with other CO2 monitors I have placed it near, and seems to respond quickly in tests (spraying exhaled air out of a balloon directly at the sensor to raise the CO2 level and then placing it outside in the wind to drop it). The PM measurements can also be useful for measuring air quality, but the others - temperature and humidity are just nice to haves (you can measure those with a variety of far cheaper sensors). The device itself is a little boxy, but is small enough to carry around easily in a bag pocket. It needs to be placed on a surface, probably out of arms reach so that you aren't breathing directly on it - you really want to get the ambient conditions not those directly in front of your mouth. Whilst I guess you could make it wearable, it wouldn't work great as a wearable monitor.CO2 is obviously the most important here, and is good for monitoring the ventilation where you are. It is portable, with the battery lasting about 6 hours in my experience. The display is easily readable and has convenient coloured LED indicators for if a reading is too high, too low or OK. I tend not to leave it on constantly on battery, but take it out to test when I am somewhere new or at intervals whilst I'm in the office. The readings for CO2 and PM will take a minute or two to stabilise after you take it out of a bag and turn it on to test. My main complaint is that the QingPing plus connection for remotely monitoring it is wifi only, whilst I think it should have bluetooth as well to be a truly great portable meter. I can't connect it in the office, and even if I could, the process for switching wifi is tedious and not worth it when you are moving around. That means you really are limited to looking at the display for the current status and not seeing trends. If it had bluetooth, and maybe a VOC sensor to complete the general air quality metrics it would probably be one of the best all around portable air quality monitors.

Happy with its form, performance and reliability so far after 2 months use. I primarily bought it to see the affect of our woodburning stove. In our "real world" test INDOORS PM2.5 tended to go DOWN when using the stove, whereas when pan-searing chicken in the kitchin PM2.5 doubled, lighting a few candles made it double too, while blowing them out made the device rise 20-fold a few minutes later. As expected when using the device OUTSIDE we measured a rise in PM2.5 downwind of our stove's chimey.PROSAccurate PM2.5 and CO2 (according to both personal tests & official ones). The latter can be easily recalibrated in the Qingping app if needed.CONSTemperature is always 2°C too high and is slow to react (like if you take it outside on a cold day). But in the Qingping app you can offset the readings if you so wish). However, I bought it for its PM2.5 and CO2 readings so rarely use the temperature or humidity readings.When taking it away from the home WI-FI it doesn’t always reconnect when returning home so on a few occasions I had to delete the monitor in the Qingping app and then re-add.NB. If the unit turns off while unplugged then it might be due to the ‘Auto Off While Using Battery’ setting being on something low like 30 minutes within the Qingping app, rather than you thinking it’s actually a poor battery.

There is a known problem with these Qingping air monitors with the fan going bad after a couple of years. The latest version of their larger air monitor has a replaceable sensor, which partly solves the problem.It's a great little monitor, integrating with HomeKit and working well while the fan is okay, and you could argue that having to replace it every 1-2 years isn't too expensive given there's not a better alternative.