Month: October 2020

Review: Airly PM + Gas

Sotirios Papathanasiou8 Comments

There is an enormous demand for air quality monitors in cities near forests that are susceptible to wildfires. Climate change has driven huge increases in wildfire area burned over the past few decades, and air quality data can help us protect public health more than ever.

Watch out! Wildfires are not the only source of air pollution in cities. Urban lifestyle with huge diesel/petrol SUVs and delivery trucks moving all around the city all day long emit huge amounts of toxic pollutants (NO2, CO, UFP, etc…) and during winter season wood stoves emit extra 12 times more PM2.5 pollution into the air we all breathe as a result they create an unhealthy environment for all.

Airly is an aspiring company that tries to empower individuals and communities with knowledge about the air they breathe by offering three different monitors that will meet the needs of a different situation. The Airly PM with is the basic version and measures particulate matter PM10, PM2.5, and PM1.0, the Airly PM + Gas (NO2 + O3), and finally, the Airly PM + Gas (SO2 + CO).

For this review, I will present to you the Airly PM + Gas (NO2 + O3) as I believe it represents better the urban environments free from industrial sites. In my city, the number one pollutant is ground level ozone as there is a huge production and transportation of vegetables and fruit all around Spain and Europe and plenty of sunlight.

Keep in mind, ground ozone forms from the interaction of nitrogen dioxide and some other pollutants with UV radiation from the sunlight.

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Outdoor Air Quality Monitors 2020Q4

Sotirios Papathanasiou10 Comments

Since my last update of the outdoor (ambient) air quality monitors list back in 2018, new products have been released into the market for various purposes and different budgets. Air quality monitors for professional use in cities and industrial sites and homeowners who want to supervise the ambient air quality outside their houses/apartments.

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Why is important to have Indoor and Outdoor AQ Monitors

Sotirios Papathanasiou3 Comments

I have been monitoring air quality indoors and outdoors for a long time now but sometimes when the air quality is acceptable and good we forget the value of having air quality monitors inside and outside the house.

The story

On October 4th, a neighbor of mine decided that it was time to start burning garbage in an open area near my apartment and his. He was clever though, as he started burning stuff from plastic to wood at late midnight at 1:00 and 5:00 when everybody sleeps. I was sleeping too, but my air quality monitors are always monitoring the environment around me.

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Review: Wynd Halo 1st Edition

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I have had this indoor air quality monitor since June 2020 but I didn’t write anything about it because the company had informed all backers that a firmware update was coming in August and then in September and I really wanted to include in my review.

I backed the product because the company claimed that Wynd 1st Edition or Wynd Halo will come with two features that I couldn’t miss. The first one is called Air ID which combining raw sensor data with contextual data from the cloud and tells you if the air has pollen, forest fire smoke, or smog from the nearby industrial plant. The second feature is an inhouse PM sesnor.

Today 5/10/2020 the firmware is in version 1.0_233 and it is still without the Air ID feature. Sometimes you need to be patient for the firmware update to arrive.

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