A gadget

[klondike]

Living right on a main road I wondered just how bad the air was in my house. I looked on Amazon and most air quality detectors seemed either more suited to taking spot measurements or were completey stupidly expensive. I settled on one which was only expensive. I had some problems with it and sent it back for a refund. I then decided it probably was faulty and bought another which turned up today. I'll leave how I got on with that for a moment although it may be in my update to my earlier review should you decide to read this link later

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R27K1T7Z0DURNQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B08X2V5K28

Text from my original review...

1.0 out of 5 stars Mine could have been faulty
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2021
Verified Purchase
I have returned this unit for a refund. I would have assumed a fault and had an exchange were it not for the fact that I saw a similar fault reported on a completely different air quality monitor.

Surprisingly small unit approximately a 6cm cube which is probably an advantage as it has no display being accessed entirely by the Alexa app. A slight problem for me as that means my phone only as the serially disappointing Lenovo Tab P11 Plus I bought recently simply won't install it. Getting it set up posed no probem which is lucky as there was nothing much in the way of instructions.

Initially I placed it next to my weather station. There was a small discrepancy between the two on both indoor temperature and humidity. I have no other means of checking humidity but an alternate thermometer pointed to the air quality monitor reading high by a degree, I suspect this was caused by the sensor being inside the powered unit.

All looked well until the thing started reporting a sharp fall in air quality which was all down to increasing VOC levels for no obvious reason. I suspected the stained wooden shelf may be to blame a moved the unit. After several hours the same thing happened with VOC actually hitting a full 100. I power cycled it and once calibration had completed it was reporting normal levels again.

Unless some miracle coincided with me power cycling the thing then it was clearly either wrong reporting staggering levels of high VOC or wrong not much later reporting normal levels. As I haven't dropped dead I'll assume the former.

My update to that should they choose to publish goes something along these lines but more vebose

Similar rise in VOC (a relative scale of 0-100 for this device) after making but not burning some toast in the adjoining kitchen. I tried an experiment and opened a can of Lidl lager it rose some more. I took a few gulps and...



It finally settled back to normal. My son has an alternate suggestion as to cause which you may spot from my device's new name...



I found in their Q&A a comment that the thing takes two days to calibrate. It is certainly the case that the Alexa app says "Device is calibrating" but I assumed that was a bug and just left there from when it certainly was just after power on.

I guess time will tell. Plenty of time left before I return it.