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1. Oregon Scientific BHDR619 Modular Personal Ringer (Wireless Doorbell) | |
![]() | list price: $49.95
our price: $39.95 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: B00006J03F Catlog: Kitchen Manufacturer: Oregon Scientific Sales Rank: 4107 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Amazon.com Review Features |
2. Oregon Scientific AR112N Indoor Air Quality Monitor, Black | |
![]() | list price: $99.95
our price: $79.99 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: B00006J047 Catlog: Kitchen Manufacturer: Oregon Scientific Sales Rank: 46018 Average Customer Review: ![]() US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Amazon.com Review Features Reviews (3)
The really useful things on the unit are humidity and temperature, good for monitoring the quality of household air on a daily basis anyway. As to the VOC (volatile organic compound) sensitivity, I assumed it must be in the high ppm --which means that by the time the device alarms, your nose might have told you something was wrong long before. So, being the geeky, techy type I am, I decided to test the unit out. First, I dipped a cotton swab in shoe polish (which has a petroleum distillate of low volatility as a component.) Held near the air intake, the unit changed from "very good" to "good", meaning the unit did detect something. (The unit shows you air quality with a series of smiley faces, smiling, straight and frowny.) Later, I dipped a swab in household spray cleanser (a more volatile organic as a component) and the unit showed the same neutral face. No alarm went off. But...here's the fun thing. A day or two later, I had a window open in an adjoining room to the monitor, and someone was burning trash outside somewhere. A waft of smoke and fumes rushed through the house, only for a moment, and the monitor alarmed. It shut off right away, as the air was only momentarily polluted but this did show the unit functions when fumes are present. The smoke was transitory, clearing quite quickly, but the unit detected it--I barely had time to sniff the burning odor. I would not rely on this device as anything but a confirmation that something is amiss with the air, and it's more of a curiousity than a real detector, such as a smoke detector. But I did once experience a situation where a small fire in an area produced fumes and NO smoke, and our detectors were silent while the room (at work) filled with a noxious odor. So this could be a good back-up to the smoke alarm. My summary: more of a fun item than a hard-line household detector, but it does seem to work, and it does measure humidity, so it's fine as far as it goes.
as for the orange peel... peeling the orange near the device causes dispersion of orange oil in the peel into the surrounding air. it may be that the oil is then oxidized in the air, causing the alarm to sound on the device. However, it seems to me this device is more aimed at measuring the average air quality over an extended period of time in an area; and the alarm feature is probably not aimed at detection of highly localized pollution that disperses in a short period of time. That is to say, if you were to put the device in your bathroom, you would not want to use the 70-second measurement feature, since the alarm sounding every time someone uses the facilities is not a very good indication of the overall air quality--and consequent health hazard--in the bathroom.
The digital thermometer and hygrometer seem to do very well (although I have no way to confirm the readings' accuracy). The measurement of VOC's is really hit-or-miss. When I first got it, I tested it with things at my parents' house: the VOC measurement goes off the chart when you put gasoline under it -- exactly what I expected. I put an open bottle of pesticide under it, and the VOC measurement didn't move -- not at all what I expected. In the kitchen at home, our readout is usually one rectangle above "V. Good," which really had me wondering until I discovered that peeling an orange near the device makes the VOC reading go off the chart -- again, not at all what I expected. So does the Air Quality Monitor give a sense of security or a false sense of alarm? For us, both. I wish that the manual had a list of what exactly it detects and what it doesn't; if I knew what it was detecting, I wouldn't be as concerned when it didn't detect a particular thing. ... Read more |
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![]() | Asin: B00028A7RG Catlog: Kitchen US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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