uHoo - Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor - White
Model: UHOO-IAS1-M-C-US
SKU: 6419011
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Customers are enthusiastic about the Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor's ability to track air quality, including carbon monoxide and particulate matter levels. They also praise the device's ease of setup and the user-friendly app. The virus index feature, which assesses the likelihood of virus spread, is another appreciated feature. Overall, the monitor receives positive feedback for its effectiveness in improving indoor air quality.
I found myself getting headaches regularly recently. Working from home these days and living under the stress of 2020 circumstances, I wanted to identify the source of my discomfort. A friend recommended I buy the uHoo Air Quality Monitor. The cute little plastic tower looks like a cross between a vase and a wifi router. There was very little to setup besides plugging it in, downloading the app, and following the instructions from my phone. The app displays 10 air quality readings including a "virus index." When you click on the "Insights" tab it gives you notifications such as "CO2 levels are high" and then suggests opening a window. I'm not sure air quality was the source of my headaches, but it is nice to be reminded to pay attention to your air quality and then get tips on how to improve it. My favorite tip said to increase indoor humidity by growing tropical plants with large leaves.
Posted by Antonio
PROS: - The app makes setup quick and easy - Provides very detailed information - Monitor is quite small and blends in - Customizable alerts (if there is carbon monoxide for example) - Works with Google Assistant, Nest, and Amazon Alexa CONS: - Can't connect to a 5GHz network - Requires you to enable location services in phone to setup - Takes a couple days to complete calibration for CO2 (for me at least) -- SETUP -- Setting up the uHoo air quality monitor is (for the most part) quite quick and simple when using the app (which is required). uHoo does a good job of helping you with each step in the process, even switching your phone from your home network to connecting to the uHoo. My only complaint about the setup process is that you need to enter your time zone AND allow the uHoo to access you phone location to complete the setup process. uHoo claims this is to help ensure the calibration is as accurate as possible. Thankfully, you can revoke the app's location access in your phone after the air quality monitor has completed both the setup and calibration. -- FEATURES -- The uHoo air quality feature helps to track: - Virus index - Temperature - Humidity - Air pressure - CO2 - VOC - Particulate matter - Carbon monoxide - Nitrogen dioxide - Ozone uHoo not only provides real-time information on each item above, but you can customize your own alert settings to notify you if any/all items are above a safe quantity (especially helpful for carbon monoxide). It did take a couple days for the CO2 sensor to complete calibration for me (which is why it's so high in my screenshot for the first couple days). I don't use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant (I have a "dumb" home), but you can pair up the uHoo air monitor, allowing you access information from your Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant if you have it (and don't want to use the uHoo app on your phone). -- BOTTOM LINE -- My wife and son both have asthma, so it's very helpful to have so much detailed information on the air everyone is breathing in. The uHoo air monitor allows us to make adjustments (turn on/off our humidifier, maybe the home air filters need to be changed early, windows should be left open longer/shorter, etc) to help keep everyone as healthy/happy as possible. I'm especially looking forward to the uHoo monitor to assist with winter air monitoring.
Posted by Daniel
With the Covid pandemic still firmly in place, we are spending much more time in our homes than ever before. Scientists have warned us for a long time that indoor air quality can actually be worse than outdoor air, and especially now, we need to be aware of what we are breathing indoors. uHoo hopes to help with this issue. uHoo is an air quality sensor device no larger than a small flower vase, that sits in your home and when connected to wifi, will alert you via an app as to the overall air quality in your home. The device contains nine sensors to detect room temperature, humidity, dust, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, VOC chemicals, carbon monoxide, ozone, and air pressure. It also has an added “Virus index” which measures conditions in the room and lets you know how likely viruses may spread in the air based on conditions. Setup is almost easy, but the wifi connection is a bit back-and-forth. The device will work on 2.4 ghz wifi, as well as “mesh” 2.4/5 ghz systems, but will not work on dedicated 5 ghz systems; unfortunately it doesn’t spell this out for you until you get pretty far along and try to connect it to a 5 ghz system, and then makes you go back to do it all over again using another route. That could be done better. But once it’s connected, and you’ve downloaded the app and created an account, you will be able to see a list on one page of all of the sensor readings in the area the uHoo is located in. A couple of them need to calibrate for up to 48 hours to give their most accurate readings. Once you have had the system up and running over time, it will also provide you with graphs for each item so you can see how each individual sensor’s readings go up and down in a given space over time. The app has the main “devices” area which is your main readout screen, and also an, “insights” area which as of the time of this writing, shows nothing except a blank screen. The top of the app has an info button that once presses will take you to an area describing what each sensor reading is measuring, and you can swipe-left through each of them for a better understanding of what each compound is. If a reading is in the safe zone, it appears in green on the main page. Orange is medium and it will give you tips in the info area as to how to improve the air, and any measurement in red (bad) will instruct you as to what to do as you should take that as a potentially dangerous reading depending on the compound in question. uHoo claims this will work with IFTTT-enabled smart devices to help keep your air cleaner (such as enabled air purifiers, humidifiers, etc) but I wasn’t able to test this feature. It will also work with Alexa and Google assistant. Not having other scientific devices to double-check this, it’s hard to know if the readings are precise or not, but I did some simple tests. As an example, I turned off my fan and air purifier in the room uHoo is in, and the readings for dust and carbon dioxide did begin to go up, telling me to open a window to improve air flow, etc. Placing it near a lit fireplace, the amount of carbon monoxide did rise a bit as well, so the sensors do seem to be working. As someone who has lung issues, it’s nice to have something that gives me detailed views of what I’m breathing. The deduction of one star in my rating is simply because of the price, as well as the power cable being a bit short to me as I’d like to see something that can stretch further for more options in placement. Is it work the up to $400 retail price? For someone like myself, it very well may. It’s an investment, but a worthwhile one for anyone concerned about what they’re breathing in their home. Always of course, check for sales to possibly save some, though. So, it’s a gadget that has value and in my opinion, worth it.
Posted by AtlantaGreg
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