IKEA's $35 Air Quality Monitor Has One Big Problem

The IKEA Alpstuga might be the most interesting air quality monitor released in the past couple of years. For $35, it measures CO2, PM2.5, temperature and humidity, and it connects to almost any smart home platform through Matter over Thread. On paper, nothing else comes close at this price - which is exactly why I wanted to test it properly. After tracking down three units (harder than it sounds!) and running them side by side against my calibrated NDIR monitors for two months, the CO2 sensor produced some of the strangest data I've ever collected. In this video, I cover how the Alpstuga performs for PM2.5, temperature and humidity, what's really going on with those CO2 readings, how it fits into Home Assistant, how it compares to IKEA's own Vindstyrka, and who should (and shouldn't) buy one. Read the full review with every graph and the complete data set: https://breathesafeair.com/ikea-alpst... Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:29 What the Alpstuga is 1:58 PM2.5 performance 3:32 Temperature and humidity 4:10 The CO2 story 7:01 Design, buttons and connectivity 9:25 Price and competition 10:20 Should you buy one? Other links: Twitter (X): https://x.com/safe_breathe Email newsletter: https://breathesafeair.beehiiv.com Contact me: ethan@breathesafeair.com