I would much rather prefer AirGradient over IQAir AirVision Pro, despite WIRED’s recent evaluation favouring the latter. Source: I “own” (see below) an IQAir AirVision Pro, which I bought directly from IQAir’s website, and I have seen an AirGradient unit in someone else’s home.
One reason is, in fact, the screen. AirVision Pro’s display is bright, but it is bright all of the time; it cannot be made dim enough to make it suitable for use in the bedroom, for example: the blueish white LCD is basically a small light fixture. Furthermore, the contents of the screen are well-readable only at a narrow angle (think when you look straight at it; putting it on top of a tall fridge or down on your windowsill makes it illegible). I would much rather prefer an e-ink display.
Second, on their website IQAir states that their air monitors are made in Europe[0]. This is a false claim. In fact, AirVision Pro is made in PRC, as it declared on the box. I would not be against a good product made in PRC, and AirVision Pro is in fact known for good cheracteristics regarding accuracy, but it seems like a dark pattern at best, and they clearly want to mislead customers.
Third, the enclosure featured a charging USB port (which is an obsolete micro USB variety incredibly hard to find cables for) that was very finicky and gave up the ghost 3 months in. The device just wouldn’t charge its battery or see any power at all thereafter, so it basically became a brick of cheap plastic for all intents and purposes. I can’t be bothered to disassemble the enclosure and try to repair it since I can’t stand the bright screen anyway and I already got the hang of air quality patterns where I live.
It did the job, sure, but if AirGradient’s PM2.5 and carbon dioxide detectors do nearly as good of a job[1] it makes it a much more compelling option for me.
Unfortunately, as of the time I last checked, AirGradient shipped to a small set of countries which did not include my area; by comparison, IQAir has a much wider coverage.
[0] You can still see the proud large “Swiss made” in the relevant section of their website (https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors). Furthermore, if you Google the question, the LLM-generated answer suggests that
The IQAir AirVisual Pro air quality monitor is Swiss-designed and manufactured. While IQAir is headquartered in Switzerland, their manufacturing facilities for air purifiers, including the AirVisual Pro, are located in both Switzerland and Southern Germany
Comments
I would much rather prefer AirGradient over IQAir AirVision Pro, despite WIRED’s recent evaluation favouring the latter. Source: I “own” (see below) an IQAir AirVision Pro, which I bought directly from IQAir’s website, and I have seen an AirGradient unit in someone else’s home.
One reason is, in fact, the screen. AirVision Pro’s display is bright, but it is bright all of the time; it cannot be made dim enough to make it suitable for use in the bedroom, for example: the blueish white LCD is basically a small light fixture. Furthermore, the contents of the screen are well-readable only at a narrow angle (think when you look straight at it; putting it on top of a tall fridge or down on your windowsill makes it illegible). I would much rather prefer an e-ink display.
Second, on their website IQAir states that their air monitors are made in Europe[0]. This is a false claim. In fact, AirVision Pro is made in PRC, as it declared on the box. I would not be against a good product made in PRC, and AirVision Pro is in fact known for good cheracteristics regarding accuracy, but it seems like a dark pattern at best, and they clearly want to mislead customers.
Third, the enclosure featured a charging USB port (which is an obsolete micro USB variety incredibly hard to find cables for) that was very finicky and gave up the ghost 3 months in. The device just wouldn’t charge its battery or see any power at all thereafter, so it basically became a brick of cheap plastic for all intents and purposes. I can’t be bothered to disassemble the enclosure and try to repair it since I can’t stand the bright screen anyway and I already got the hang of air quality patterns where I live.
It did the job, sure, but if AirGradient’s PM2.5 and carbon dioxide detectors do nearly as good of a job[1] it makes it a much more compelling option for me.
Unfortunately, as of the time I last checked, AirGradient shipped to a small set of countries which did not include my area; by comparison, IQAir has a much wider coverage.
[0] You can still see the proud large “Swiss made” in the relevant section of their website (https://www.iqair.com/products/air-quality-monitors). Furthermore, if you Google the question, the LLM-generated answer suggests that
which is not true.
[1] Perhaps someone can comment on that; I don’t see SenseAir sensors listed on https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table.