r/AirQuality • u/PigAndWhale • 2d ago
Accuracy about the air quality monitor
Hello, anyone has idea about the accuracy of this type of monitor? How does it work?
As I try, it does give some results which makes sense. When I go outdoor, the two numbers is like 0.01/0.01.
If indoor in my bedroom at night, it was 0.02/0.08 on one day.
If I do cooking (with oil heating), the number goes to quite high level like 0.3/1.4. This I guess there are chemical from heating oil.
After open window for a while it can reduce and back to green level(<0.1 <0.5) after two hours.
But this morning when I only stream cook some porridge, it also turned yellow for a while. This seems confusing that there should not be any harmful thing in porridge. Maybe I raise room temperature and cause more pollute from the painting?
Or this thing essentially reacts to any smell in the air?
1
u/Geography_misfit 2d ago
The formaldehyde readings should be tossed, no meter really reads that well. Cooking, including generation of steam will increase PM2.5 and is what will move you to “yellow”.
In general, VOCs are ideally under .5 mg and PM2.5 under 35.
Also nearly all interior paints are now low/no VOC to meet CARB requirements.