Gear guide · Air · updated October 2, 2026

Indoor air quality monitors

You can't manage what you don't measure. A particle (PM2.5) reading tells you when wildfire smoke has made it indoors and whether the purifier is keeping up; CO₂ tells you whether the house is under-ventilated for the people in it — the same question the audit's ventilation assessment answers with instruments.

Not sure this category applies to your home? The 30-second screener flags it if so, and the mold & indoor air guide covers the testing side.

A heat recovery ventilator on a basement wall with four insulated ducts running up between the joists

The everything monitor

Airthings View Plus

Radon, PM2.5, CO₂, humidity, VOCs, and pressure in one wall-mounted display — the single-device answer for a whole-home baseline.

The CO₂ truth-teller

Aranet4 Home

The reference consumer CO₂ monitor — e-ink display, years on a battery, NDIR sensor. Under ~800 ppm your ventilation is keeping up; sustained higher numbers make the case for an HRV.

The budget particle counter

Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor

PM2.5, VOC, humidity and temperature for the price of a dinner out — enough to see smoke infiltration and check purifier placement, minus the CO₂ sensor.

Price bands are September 2026 Canadian planning figures — street prices move, so treat them as budget bands and check the live listing.

Before you buy

  • On wildfire-smoke days, indoor PM2.5 below ~12 µg/m³ is the target — if the number climbs when the purifier is running, it's undersized or mis-placed.
  • CO₂ is a proxy for ventilation, not a pollutant at household levels — it tells you when to ventilate and when an HRV would pay off.
  • Humidity readings on these double as your mould early-warning: winter target roughly 30–50%.

Some links here are affiliate links — as an Amazon Associate, AuditYourHome earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Picks are chosen on merit; no manufacturer pays for placement, and prices shown are planning bands, not quotes.

Also in gear guides: Radon monitors & test kits · Air purifiers (HEPA) · Carbon monoxide alarms