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Home air quality monitoring and purification


ChTTay

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Hi there,

 

I was wondering if anyone owned the Xiaomi Air monitor (here)? If so, how have you found it?

 

I read this review of Xiaomi's air purifiers and they're saying that the monitor inbuilt into the xiaomi purifiers is essentially useless. If that's the case, won't their stand alone device use the same tech? 

 

I'm debating buying the xiaomi model or the laser egg. The xiaomi is cheaper and I already have a fair amount of xiaomi stuff in my house so it would mean using the same app/ecosystem. 

 

I did read somewhere that the stand alone monitor uses “laser” tech (the same as the “laser” egg I assume).

 

Be good to find someone who actually has the Xiaomi one 

 

Thanks!

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I have no experience with indoor monitors, but I did spec some outdoor ones a while back, and came to the conclusion that most of the cheap ones are not accurate.  It's not only the type of sensor, but how the airflow across it is managed (the decent ones have fans etc).  

 

So the best I can offer is: if it's cheap it's probably not very good.

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Yeah, I have the model 2.  It has an "auto" setting that is supposed to keep the air clean, but the sensor is worthless.  I have a separate handheld PM25 meter, and it reports a different number from the Xiaomi.  It works well enough to blow air through the filter, after a while it will indeed reduce the PM25 to single digits, but the auto mode is worthless.  I tried to clean the sensor with a Q-tip and alcohol, and that just made it worse.  

 

I've bought a lot of Xiaomi junk over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that you should only buy phones and earbuds from them.  The rest of their product line varies wildly in quality and breaks about half the time.  Xiaomi looks on warranty replacements like the customer is trying to cheat them.  

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Vellocet, yes, I am talking about the stand alone air quality monitors and not the built in monitor that is within the air purifiers. The built in monitors are not reliable. I’ve seen this first hand and the link I posted also finds this in basic tests. 

 

The stand alone monitor is what I am curious about.

 

Mungouk, because we’re talking about consumer electronics for home use the price cannot be so high or no one would buy them. I think most people in Beijing just want a rough idea and to be able to tell that their air purifier is doing a decent job within their home. The xiaomi monitor  is about 60USD (400RMB) while the newer laser egg is between 600-1000RMB depending on the model. The the top end is the “node” and that’s 1500RMB. For me personally, I could swallow 600rmb for one but getting up to 1000 seems crazy. As above, I’m not going to geek out with air quality monitoring or do tests. I just want a guideline. 

 

For what it’s worth, the air purifiers by Xiaomi are excellent and perform well in tests. I also like the app functionality and range of options. The Dr. that runs the blog “myhealthbeijing” went as far as to say he has given up testing because they’re so good. I also have a Xiaomi TV box that’s pretty good for movies. Otherwise I’ve got nothing else Xiaomi. 

 

I might go with the laser egg just because of the lack of data on the Xiaomi one and their questionable monitoring tech installed in their own purifiers. 

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You mean why invest in a monitor when you can just run the purifier? Yeah, you could just run it all the time during a bad patch. What I want to know is when I'm running it, what's the AQI in my apartment? I can trust my air purifiers (and do) but I still want to know. I think this is the main motivation behind buying them for every day consumers.

 

I know a few people who bought them to check their office/school actually has the purification that they said it does and that it's working.

 

Maybe change the topic title for this?

 

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Ohhh...OK I see.  Yeah I wouldn't trust the air quality monitor from Xiaomi.  Plus, why's this a Beijing thing? :-?  All over China the cities have high PM25 ratings.  

 

You can run the thing all the time, but it's rather noisy.  When I want to listen to a video or something, the white noise does a good job of muffling the sound.  Moreover you only get so much life out of a filter, and they're not cheap.  When the filter gets dusty you can take it outside and shake it clean and put it back in, but eventually it'll stop cleaning the air.  

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Why is it a Beijing thing? I thought it put it in Electronics. 

 

New title is good :P

 

My school has their own air monitor which we use to determine if we can go outside for break. I looked it up on taobao and it’s between 600 and 1500 depending on the model. It’s just a random Chinese brand but it seems to work well enough. We have an indoor air purification system built into the school (no standalone units). Inside it’s always about 2-15PM2.5. On a bad day you take the monitor outside and it shoots straight up. It usually matches the APP figure quite closely.  

 

As for running them all the time, Xiaomi’s air purifiers are actually really good. The App allows you to set the speed (and thus the noise) using a sliding scale. If I had an external monitor I could then see if the pollution got to high and adjust the speed up if necessary. Right now I usually just put the thing to a low setting for bed otherwise I won’t be able to sleep. 

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18 hours ago, ChTTay said:

 

My school has their own air monitor which we use to determine if we can go outside for break.

 ? I remember back when I was a kid in school, the teachers would check if it was raining to determine if we could go outside for a break.

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My friend has a xiaomi, like others have said their indoor air quality rating is quite useless. I also read a lot about filters and essentially you need to have it on high to really clean the air out. 

 

I have a noisier more  ghetto looking filter, the Smart Air which basically does the same job as fancy filters except doesn't look as nice and a bit noisier. Its essentially a HEPA filter attached to a fan. I got mine from a friend moving out and just buy the replacement filters whenever they look too dark. I read online that it can last about 3 months but I find that living in Beijing and using my fan quite often, I wouldn't use it past 2 months. 

 

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18 minutes ago, grawrt said:

My friend has a xiaomi, like others have said their indoor air quality rating is quite useles

 

A Xiaomi what? A Xiaomi air purifier (that has a built in monitor) or one of the standalone monitors (link in my first post).

 

I linked Smart Air in my first post as they seemed to be the best site who looked at stand alone air quality monitors in depth. I remember when the founder first started here in Beijing. They ran a lot of workshops on how to build your own. I think they did a lot to bring the price down of other models and raise awareness of the issue of clean air. 

 

Most people I know have Xiaomi air purifiers and are extremely happy with them (usually ignoring the built in purifier). 

 

This is a good article from “myhealthbeijing” about Xiaomi air purifiers. 

 

It seems like having the filter fan on high for (better) purification seems logical. Surely applies to all filters? Can’t filter the air unless the air is passing through the filter?! :lol:

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19 hours ago, ChTTay said:

A Xiaomi what? A Xiaomi air purifier (that has a built in monitor) or one of the standalone monitors (link in my first post).

 

I linked Smart Air in my first post as they seemed to be the best site who looked at stand alone air quality monitors in depth. I remember when the founder first started here in Beijing. They ran a lot of workshops on how to build your own. I think they did a lot to bring the price down of other models and raise awareness of the issue of clean air. 

 

Most people I know have Xiaomi air purifiers and are extremely happy with them (usually ignoring the built in purifier). 

 

This is a good article from “myhealthbeijing” about Xiaomi air purifiers. 

 

It seems like having the filter fan on high for (better) purification seems logical. Surely applies to all filters? Can’t filter the air unless the air is passing through the filter?! :lol:

 

wow really? I didn't even notice the link at all. 

 

Sorry I misread your topic question entirely.  But just a note, I meant my friend had a xiaomi purifier i it wasn't clear enough. I don't think xiaomi phones will ever have the capability to purify the air :P 

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When I had one, I was instructed to put it in my bedroom, run it on the highest setting during the day and then turn it off when I went to sleep. There was no monitor, but that usage seemed sensible to me. I think I'd go quite mad if I had the thing on all the time. Once in Beijing I was at a colleague's place where they were running at least one air purifier and at least two air moisteners (there is probably a better word). The air must have been pretty pleasant but I mostly remember the machines humming everywhere.

 

Air-cleaning phones, now that would be the seller of the century :-D

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13 minutes ago, Lu said:

. I think I'd go quite mad if I had the thing on all the time. Once in Beijing I was at a colleague's place where they were running at least one air purifier and at least two air moisteners (there is probably a better word). The air must have been pretty pleasant but I mostly remember the machines humming everywhere.

 

I have both, an air purifier and a humidifier (think that's the word you're looking for). The air purifier, I can't run all day for the noise so I blast it on for an hour or so. It has a digital reader but it seems more like a bit of decoration rather than give  any sensible results 

The humidifier is good actually, runs almost silent but goes through a lot of water.  

Opposite problem in UK. I need to run bulky dehumidifiers because of frequent damp weather which eat through electricity.. Only 6C (43F) in London now :(

 

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I’ve not seen the advice about turning it off when you sleep. In fact, I mostly see the exact opposite. You’re lying down in a room for 6-9 hours just breathing, so usually they say it’s a perfect time to purify the air. Bedrooms tend to be small and easier to purify too. 

 

Actually, I’ve read that it can take up to 2 hours to purify a rooms air but can take just 10 minutes for the air quality levels to go back up once turned off (source: SmartAir/The Beijinger). This would make sense to me. 

 

As for the hum, I don’t find it any worse than running an aircon unit or a fan when sleeping. It’s a fairly consistent hum so you just tune it out eventually. 

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I do wonder, if the cheap ones are any good and have they been professionally tested. Mine is a cheap one (900 i think it cost), but I see those Blue air (布鲁雅尔?) ones on sale in the malls in central  Beijing and they are 25,000! even Haier are around 2000 on Jingdong

 

 

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Yes, they’re basically the same. The tech is just a fan with a filter (check out Smart Air’s site if you haven’t already where they have a lot of info). 

 

From the tests I’ve seen (mostly on smart air and myhealthbeijing) the quality of the purifiers are variable but all the main brands “work” essentially. The cheap air purifiers hit the market once Chinese consumers started to care about the air quality more and companies like Xiaomi realises there was a market. Most Chinese consumers aren’t willing to pay the crazy prices for Blueair etc.

 

My school has blueair machines as “back up” for our built in system. They don’t seem anything special to me but they are pretty industrial and suited to large rooms (like classrooms). 

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