Qingping Air Quality Monitor vs AirGradient ONE

[Ethan]

Hi @Follower32,

Thank you for joining the forum and great question! I moved your comment to a new thread because there are a few things worth discussing here.

Firstly, I want to be totally transparent and let you know (if you’re not already aware) that I now work as a freelancer for AirGradient. They’re a very transparent company, and I’m allowed to say whatever I want about them and their products (which is the reason why I work with them), but I just wanted to make sure this is known.

Honestly, this is a tough question. For a long time, I said that my two favourite indoor monitors around the $150 price point were the AirGradient ONE (kit) and Qingping Gen 2. However, as you’ve pointed out, the AirGradient monitor is now around $200 for U.S. customers and the prebuilt monitor has almost doubled in price since I initially reviewed it. This has greatly changed the landscape. I figure the best way to discuss this is to break down the points that you’ve mentioned.

@Follower32

I feel the airgradient’s main advantages are its well studied and accurate sensor suite and its open source nature both software and hardware wise.

Yes, I think you’re right here. I would also add that the customer support for the devices is quite good (I do a lot of it!).

@Follower32

However, the qingping looks like it has about equal sensor accuracy, albeit a less studied particle sensor.

I’ve torn down a Qingping device, but I was never able to find out exactly which sensor it uses as it’s labelled just with ‘Qingping’ and no specifics. With that said, the first generation monitor performed quite well in third-party tests like AQ-SPEC, and I don’t think they would decrease the accuracy with the second generation device. As such, I would probably agree that sensor performance is similar (I am currently testing the Qingping against a reference device and might be able to provide some more details on this in the next few days)!

@Follower32

With how unreliable low cost sensors are in general, especially towards VOCs, I’m very much leaning towards the conclusion that the qingping sensors are accurate enough. Manual CO2 calibration out of the box is also nice.

I would partially disagree with this. I’ve been doing quite a bit of testing recently and I think many low-cost PM sensors are actually quite decent - at least for PM1.0 and PM2.5. Low-cost CO2 sensors (as long as they’re NDIR or photo acoustic) tend to be very accurate. However, you’re very right when it comes to VOCs. Here, I think AirGradient has a slight edge for the following reasons:

1. The Sensirion Index that AG uses is well-known and documented.
2. You can adjust the baseline calibration period.

On the other hand, Qingping looks to use its own algorithm that causes a bit more confusion (we discussed it quite extensively near the end of this thread: Air Quality Monitors for VOCs). With that said, at the end of the day, I think you’re correct - both use very similarly performing sensors for PM and CO2, and both still rely on indexes for VOCs.

@Follower32

The other thing is the open sourceness, which allows me to fix or modify the airgradient easily, potentially allowing it to have a much longer functional lifespan.

Yes, this is a big advantage and it should mean the device lasts for a long time (perhaps with a few sensor replacements along the way). I actually didn’t know that the Qingping lacked a power passthrough, but that would explain why the battery dies so quickly. With that said, even without the battery, you’ll still get the same usability as you would with an AirGradient ONE which lacks a battery altogether.

@Follower32

Furthermore, with the high shipping costs of airgradient, getting something like a replacement particle sensor after a few years would cost $50 so at that point (assuming I got the cheaper kit option) I would be at $250 total which is halfway to getting 2 entire qingpings.

Unless the mainboard dies or you need a replacement case, there is no need to purchase anything from AirGradient so you could avoid the high shipping fees. A quick search found the PMS5003 at $25 from Amazon, the SGP41 for about $19, and the SHT40 for around $10. Since these are all standard, non-proprietary components, there is no need to get them from AirGradient and you can source them from anywhere you’d like (and avoid the massive shipping fee).

@Follower32

Curious if you have any info from qingping on how long the grandway particle sensor is supposed to last.

Unfortunately, no. However, my original Qingping devices both use Grandway sensors and both still operate well after about three years. They’ve never been exposed to very high concentrations of PM though.

@Follower32

Do you feel there’s anything I’m missing that would lead me towards paying $50-$150 more for the airgradient?

It’s definitely more of an ‘enthusiast’ focused device and you will find many more advanced features supported. For example, you can only see data in 15-minute resolution on the Qingping, but you can go all the way down to 1-minute resolution on the AirGradient ONE.

On the other hand, the Qingping device is far prettier (and a bit easier to use) and it’s a much better standalone device. If you’d prefer to interact with the device itself, the Qingping is a better option. If you don’t mind using a web dashboard, the AirGradient does well. Qingping also has an app - while we’re working on one too, it’s likely still a few months away.

If I had to recommend one, I think the AG device is better if you don’t mind spending some time getting the device set up and fully understanding its capabilities. However, the Qingping is better if you prefer ease of use and a nicer user experience. Both of them perform similarly when it comes to accuracy, it’s just that AirGradient is more transparent on this front - and it’s a bit more of a hands-on experience to get the most out of your device.

I hope this helps! I’m happy to answer any additional questions if you have them.