Govee Smart Air Quality Monitor review: An inexpensive tracker

Allergens, chemical pollutants, poor humidity—chances are your home has at least one of these common indoor air quality issues. The health effects can range from mild discomfort to debilitating symptoms, potentially setting up a cycle where your quality of life deteriorates along with your air quality. That makes a device like the Govee Smart Air Quality Monitor a worthwhile investment. It tracks temperature, relative humidity, and concentration of fine particulate matter to provide a real-time report on the state of your indoor air, so you can take action to improve it.

Best known until now for its inexpensive smart lighting products, Govee’s Smart Air Quality Monitor is an unobtrusive device that you can set on an end table or shelf. It runs on AC power (via USB-C), so it needs to be within reach of an electrical outlet. The front display shows the current temperature; relative humidity; and PM 2.5 levels (i.e., particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller), which is reported in micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m3). An LED indicator changes color according to the concentration of PM 2.5, with green indicating levels below 35µg/m3, blue for levels 35 to 75µg/m3, yellow for 75 to 115µg/m3, and red for levels greater than 115µg/m3.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart air quality monitors.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The monitor’s lone built-in control is a function button on its top. According to the user manual, this should allow you to switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature readings with a single click, or toggle between PM2.5 readings and the current time with a long press. When I used it, though, a single click switched the display between the PM2.5 display and the time, but a long press would only dim the display’s lighting.

In the end, that didn’t matter much, as the best way to control the monitor is with the Govee Home app, which you’ll also use to control compatible Govee smart appliances. The app guides you through the process of pairing the device and connecting it to your Wi-Fi network, and it provides far more information and context than the monitor’s display.

The app’s main screen shows a series of graphs displaying PM2.5 levels, temperature, relative humidity, dew point, and VPD (vapor-pressure deficit) over time. This helps you to correlate readings to particular conditions and events—both humidity and PM2.5 levels rose noticeably whenever I was cooking in the kitchen, for example—and it generally gives you a more holistic picture of your indoor environment. Air conditions naturally fluctuate throughout the day, but you don’t need to vigilantly check your phone to stay on top of these readings. The app allows you to set alert thresholds for PM2.5, temperature, and humidity, and it pushes notifications whenever these move out of the desired range.

When you get one of these alerts, you can take appropriate action, such as opening some windows to let in fresh air, or switching on the furnace or a fan to make the temperature more comfortable. An easier way is to pair the smart air monitor with Govee’s Wi-Fi-connected air purifiers, humidifiers, and/or space heaters, which will enable these smart appliances to automatically jump into action when air quality, humidity, and/or temperature respectively reaches undesirable levels. I paired the monitor with a Govee air purifier (model H7120), which allowed it to automatically increase its air speed based on the PM2.5 levels collected by the monitor. When PM2.5 readings reached the “green” level, the air purifier reduced its speed to the lowest level.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The Govee Home app also provides detailed instructions for linking the monitor with your Amazon Alexa account to enable voice control using an Amazon Echo device or the Alexa app (there is currently no support for Google Assistant).

At $60, the Govee Smart Air Monitor is the least expensive product in the category, a distinction previously held by the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor. Govee’s product is also a much more polished than Amazon’s device. It’s important to note, however, that Amazon’s device tracks two airborne pollutants that Govee’s does not: carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds—both of which can be very hazardous to your health in high levels.

That caveat aside, the Govee Smart Air Monitor is a strong value, whether or not you’ve already invested in Govee’s smart-home ecosystem.