Airthings Wave Plus Indoor Air Quality Monitor with Radon Detection - $211

brobinsoncc wrote: ↑ I bought one a few years ago. I averaged 168 bq/m3 the last year. I have highs in the high 200s. Haven’t decided if I am going to do anything about it yet

I would. The Canadian mitigation standard of 200bq/m3 is ridiculous. The rest of the world uses far lower amounts (WHO is 100).

That's high radon. I know someone who never smoked a day in his life and ran marathons and got stage 3 lung cancer from radon in his house (discovered after the fact obviously). It's the second leading cause of lung cancer in the world.

what use? run if readings high? smoke detector CO detector are necessary, this thing, thank you, save $200 for lunch

Have the basic Wave device for about 4 years now. As people mentioned, syncing the device via bluetooth is a pain, as it can only be done when you're around 15 feet away from the device. That said, if you don't mind that annoyance and want the cheaper device to monitor the more critical Radon gas levels, I've enjoyed using this device to learn about my indoor air quality. For my home, the radon levels seem to spike when there's a string of consecutive days with lots of rain, as I believe the rain causes the gases to pass more freely in the air (don't quote me, but I remember Googling why my Radon levels were high after it rained). Comfortably sitting under 100 for basically all year, but there are maybe a handful of days when that spikes to 100+, at which I try to get out the house or run the air purifiers on high (not sure if that helps though).

View Plus looks great, albiet pricey. Might pick up the View Plus if I can sell my Wave to anyone here...

Not sure if it was posted but here's the difference between the Wave and the Wave plus models.

yashgandhi wrote: ↑ Does this provide accurate readings?

For whatever it's worth, none of these are certified under NRPP or C-NRPP programs, those ones are at least $1000+.

Is it accurate? Who really knows as no one has any baselines to compare to.

Here are links to my old posts on radon:

Radon information:
amazon-bestbuy-airthings-radon-detector ... #p31736261

Tools / Supply List:
amazon-bestbuy-airthings-radon-detector ... #p31906958

This thing is for monitoring. Not to see if you have too much radon in your house., For the later, a test from times to times is sufficient.

My 2 cents:

Buy a long-term "cheap" 50$-ish single-use test.
Do it.
Once you got that knowledge, THEN you might need mitigations and monitoring.
This Airthing device is super usefull to know if mitigation is still working well.

My house has Radon issues, go the cheap test to find out. Got the Airthing to make sure my DIY mitigation worked.
I'm satisfied with the Airthing, but it's super specialized as a device. If your home does not have Radon, you will not need it.

One fun thing tho, I now pass it around the office.
My colleagues install it in their basement to have a quick check, instead of buying the (more acurate) 50$ long-term canister.

About accuracy: Pre-mitigation, I had peaks of 800 mBq. After, reading is stable around 10mBq.
I don't need super precision. It's either much lower than 100mBq, or I have an issue.

Awair + dedicated radon detector is better than this and what I have.

Awair gives PM2.5 and for day to day air quality that is the most important reading, and few meters actually have it. It's the small particulates that destroy your lungs etc over time. This is especially key for wildfire smoke to compare to outside and see effectiveness of air purifier etc (I use Austin Air). PurpleAir website's map let's you look at raw PM2.5 numbers in addition to AQI.

Order through US Amazon and they ship to Canada. A bit weird but works fine.

I think the "mold risk" feature of Wave Mini is just a humidity sensor. It is not available in Wave and Wave Plus probably because they don't want you to put wave plus in humid area. Humidity is not good for the radon sensor.

radeonboy wrote: ↑ Not sure if it was posted but here's the difference between the Wave and the Wave plus models.

I wonder, a running furnace would be a problem if the basement radon level is close to 150 Bq/m3. I assume the furnace air intake is located close to the furnace itself.
I don't want the radon to be circulated in my house at my expense

Deal's dead it seems. Price on Amazon is ~$250 + tax now.


I was interested in getting this but wasn't sold on the Wave Plus because really it's just adding a CO2 sensor compared to the Wave. Air pressure is kinda useless and it's already present on a lot of phones, thermostats, etc.

So I spent a fair bit of time looking at separate CO2 sensors so I could maybe get the Wave and then separately a few CO2 sensors for some rooms that I suspect are poorly ventilated at night. But what I've learned is that the cheap CO2 sensors are not worth it because they don't actually measure CO2, they just estimate it based on VOCs or some other cheap sensor instead. So a proper CO2 measuring device is probably going to cost ~$100, unless you're tech savvy enough to buy individual modules and set them up yourself. Anything under $50 is most likely not actually measuring CO2.

In the end, the Wave Plus for me still doesn't seem worth it, even with CO2. Since radon is mostly a concern for the basement, so you'll have to leave the Wave Plus down there most of the time and then it's not really monitoring CO2 in your bedroom, living room, etc. If you have a finished basement and people spend a lot of time down there (or sleep there), then the Wave Plus definitely seems worth it compared to other items on the market.

The Wave is also discounted right now, so I might buy that for now and just leave it in the basement. There is a HomeAssistant integration for it so hopefully I'll be able to detect it via bluetooth from upstairs and just see how it trends overtime. And then separately I'll look into a cheap CO2 sensor that I can move between rooms to see if there's an issue during the day/night.

82 wrote: ↑ I hope you are right, curious how you come up with this "full consensus", especially when IARC lists EMF a possible carcinogenic. This is still a debatable topic from what I gather and I think most believe there is no strong evidence either way and it is probably safe to use.

Consensus: you can find lots of info. Here's a layman's article:
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4761

Or you can try to find studies in serious science journals.


Lists of "possible carcinogens" are meaningless. Look at what else is on those lists.


Honestly, it's not debatable because the power of your wifi is infinitesimal compared to all the other EM you get (microwave, electric wiring in your walls, the Sun, the cosmic background, local radio stations, ...). Why are you afraid of wifi but not those?

Bottom line: there is both strong evidence and strong theoretical reasons to believe that wifi is 100% safe. And zero replicated peer reviewed evidence, and zero theoretical basis to believe otherwise.


Radon on the other had causes lots of cancer.

apvij91 wrote: ↑ I wonder, a running furnace would be a problem if the basement radon level is close to 150 Bq/m3. I assume the furnace air intake is located close to the furnace itself.
I don't want the radon to be circulated in my house at my expense

Most furnaces intake air from the living areas, not the basement. Now some air will probably get in through leakage in the returns.
That said, furnace running or not I've see that levels upstairs tend to be only slightly lower than the basement.

You don't need a dedicated radon meter for detecting radon.

Buy a Radex radiation meter from ebay.

get a MERV 15+ filter.

step 1. get a background reading of the MERV 15+ filter.

step 2. put the filter in the furnace and let it run regularly with either AC or heater.

step 3. waiting for 1 month or so, take out the filter and immediate have a read over it with the Radex radaition meter.

step 4. measure the reading every 1 hour

step 5. get a pen take down the readings and see if the readings were initially high and gradually goes down after hours, if so, then you have radon problem, if the number doesn't change much, you are fine without radon.

Theory of operating: Radon gas will decay into other solid radioactive particles that will most likely got caught by your high MERV rating filter and stuck on it, and their half-lives are very short lived (usually in hours) and thus you can tell by reading out the filter instead of buying an expensive (and useless elsewhere) radon meter

jasonchan wrote: ↑ The View Plus is coming out - it has direct wifi connection.
https://www.airthings.com/en-ca/view-plus?hsLang=en-ca

I have the wave plus and finding that needing a intermediary phone for connection / updates is very annoying. Also the view plus has a particulate count that will help give a better picture of the air quality.

I have both, and I will say Wave Plus looks nicer. Honestly kind of disappointed in the construction and screen on the View Plus (got it on preorder sale for around $300?). It's kind of bulky, oddly shaped, and the power plug wire can't be easily hidden, screen is small and looks like the monochrome screens on old nokia phones. It's saving grace is that the View Plus can act as a Hub (continuous wi-fi connectivity for any of your other bluetooth airthings devices if you already have these) however the functionality isn't enabled yet . Agree with you on the PM and VOC count, but not sure those features alone is worth getting more than one of these View plus'.

As an aside, wave plus was one of the best purchases we made when moving in. Measured 300+ Bq/m3 (very high) on average over the winter, so we are very glad to have the radon mitigation (sub floor depressurization) done. Now under 10 Bq/m3 for the past couple years and that peace of mind is priceless.

xuanzh wrote: ↑ You don't need a dedicated radon meter for detecting radon.

Buy a Radex radiation meter from ebay.

get a MERV 15+ filter.

step 1. get a background reading of the MERV 15+ filter.

step 2. put the filter in the furnace and let it run regularly with either AC or heater.

step 3. waiting for 1 month or so, take out the filter and immediate have a read over it with the Radex radaition meter.

step 4. measure the reading every 1 hour

step 5. get a pen take down the readings and see if the readings were initially high and gradually goes down after hours, if so, then you have radon problem, if the number doesn't change much, you are fine without radon.

Theory of operating: Radon gas will decay into other solid radioactive particles that will most likely got caught by your high MERV rating filter and stuck on it, and their half-lives are very short lived (usually in hours) and thus you can tell by reading out the filter instead of buying an example radon meter.

Those radex meters appear to be just about as much as the airthings.

Deal's dead for the Wave Plus on Amazon, but the next best price seems to be $240 at CT and BB. Discounted from $300 apparently.

scienide09 wrote: ↑ You can see a national map here: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/datalab/radon-blog.html#map

https://radonmap.com/

CiceroCL wrote: ↑ Looks like one of the lowest prices in a while for this product. Well reviewed for air monitoring.

This is now down to $156, got the alert from 3xC (lowest ever). At that price I'm in.