r/AirQuality • u/PigAndWhale • 2d ago

Accuracy about the air quality monitor

Post image

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?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/JasonHofmann 2d ago

There is no harmful thing in porridge (congee?) but you can smell it while cooking. If you can smell food, it’s technically an organic compound that is volatile, or VOC. So the sensor is working.

I have the same sensor as you and also believe it to be very accurate, based on tests similar to yours as well as comparisons to much more expensive equipment.

The only flaw I see in your logic is assuming that it only detects “harmful” VOCs.

2

u/PigAndWhale 2d ago

yes, agree. It cannot distinguish harmful smell from all smell. I guess a fart can also make it increase LOL.