Wave Plus

First of all radon is no joke. I learned about radon many years ago when I moved to a state/county that is classified as EPA's Zone 1 for radon risk. I knew nothing about radon back then however the city/county did a fairly good job educating people about the dangers of this gas. One day I saw this big "Got Radon?" sign by the side of the road with a website to learn more about it. I was curious and followed through. What I learned was very concerning and questioned why I knew about the "dangers" of "mold" and not about a RADIOACTIVE gas that was lingering around my house. I think the answer is that we are obsessed with things that have short term impact but tend to bury our heads under the sand when we need to look ahead in the future 5, 10 or more years. We simply like to think the problem is not there because it is difficult for our brains to register the danger without immediate threat (like a scratchy throat).To cut the story short, I bought a radon test kit and the results came back at 10 PCi/L. We immediately took action and installed a radon mitigation system. Learning that radon levels can fluctuate I always dreamed of having a device that could constantly measure the levels of radon inside our house. Therefore I was thrilled when I found the Wave while browsing for IAQ monitors. We have own the device for a couple of months now, so sharing our thoughts:1) This is a CONSUMER GRADE device, therefore users expectations should be accordingly. The value of owning this device is not to have a measure comparable to professional grade equipment but to have a close idea if you have a radon issue (consistent measures above the recommended threshold taken over a long period of time) or if your home is ok (consistent measures below the recommended threshold taken over a long period of time). This device will show you just that. In terms of accuracy of radon measurements, although we have only been measuring for a few weeks, we now live in an EPA Zone 3 county and we have seen Wave levels consistently measuring below recommended threshold.2) This device measures CO2 (carbon "dioxide") not CO (carbon monoxide). I read some reviews about people's CO alarm not sounding when the Wave was registering high levels of CO2. Well, these are 2 different things.3) In terms of temperature and humidity, we own several monitors in our home. Wave's measurements are comparable to these devices. I would say the wave is consistently 1 or 2 degrees above the cheaper "accurate" devices we have in the house. Same for humidity %4) VOCs measurements are very impressive. We can immediately see the changes in results even with subtle things like sweeping the floors or bringing a box inside our home with things that had been in storage. We just bought a few Wave Minis to place them in the bedrooms as well. This monitor has helped confirm that passive and active ventilation are key to keep VOCs levels below recommended thresholds!5) The app works well and is pretty user friendly. We had no issues downloading or using the app in our phones or iPad. Also, no issues registering the device. I think the level of information is what we need and it is great to have access to historic data.6) Finally, this device requires CALIBRATION. The instructions clearly state that you need to place the device in its intended environment for 7 days to allow for proper calibration. We did exactly that and it seems to be working just fine.Overall highly recommended if you want a comprehensive view of the quality of the air you are breathing inside your home. I am hoping 5 years from now Indoor Air Quality equipment will be required, as smoke detectors are today.

Love this thing. I didn't realize just how important air quality was until I read somewhere that we typically have too much CO2 built up in our homes, especially in our rooms at night if we have our door shut. Higher CO2 levels effect sleep quality and brain function.With this monitor, I'm able to determine if I need to crack my window, turn on my dehumidifier or run a fan to cool down the room. It tracks Temp, Co2, Humidity and more. But the first three are what I pay most attention to. I have a separate radon detector. (Ecosense RD200 RadonEye) that works REALLY well BTW.

Bought this unit to test overall air quality and realized we had a radon problem. Wasn't even looking for that, so I am grateful it was included. Here's the problem though... while it IS somewhat in the ballpark for the radon level, we discovered it erred on the low side after testing it alongside 3 other detectors - 2 similar type monitors of a different brand and 1 traditional charcoal test that we sent to a lab. Local radon mitigation companies trust the charcoal tests, they don't trust these monitors and told us to make sure we did the charcoal test too. Glad we did.Here's the thing... radon is a fluctuating number. After copious amounts of radon research along with my test results, I learned quite a bit. This monitor tells you that you must let it "calibrate" for 7 days to get a reading that is somewhat accurate and that 30 days is best. You really end up evaluating an average when understanding where your radon level is, but it doesn't feel good to see high spikes that get averaged out with lower ones. I like seeing where the top numbers land and how often. The app and information given is really nice and well delivered.In the first 7 days, our numbers for all metrics would wildly fluctuate. This particular monitor is not measuring with a high number of data points. I learned that quick and accurate radon testing requires a lot of data points. There are other monitors out there that do this much better because they have more data points (we tested alongside RadonEye that matched our charcoal test sent to a lab). The Airthings average level was lower by over 1 full point (the monitor was right beside the charcoal test). In radon terms, that too much difference (1 point is significant) to be considered an accurate monitor for me. But it WAS consistent after that first 7 days with its own measurements, going up and down consistently (higher at night, higher when it rains - all things you learn about radon when researching that proved true for us). But those averages were still lower than the other tests that also had consistency and, most importantly, matched each other. Airthings was the odd man out with the lower reading. And it takes this monitor a while to adjust to change (about 24 hours at least) while the other monitors give you accurate readings much more quickly (within a couple of hours) if you move it to a different room.Radon aside, I feel like the other metrics of VOCs, CO2, etc are probably pretty good. I didn't test those against another machine so I can't say for sure. But they did respond to change like fresh air coming in to the room, etc. Those metrics change more in real time which is nice to see.Overall, I love the look of the monitor, it's easy to place with not needing to be plugged in, the app is very easy to use and delivers the information beautifully. It only lacks in accuracy for radon in my experience. If that got better, I would choose this monitor over the others hands down. They are the same price for only radon testing and they need to be plugged in.I will be returning this one because I want radon accuracy but if I wanted the other metrics, I'd get this one without hesitation.