Airthings 2960 View Plus - Battery Powered Radon & Air Quality Monitor (PM, CO2, VOC, Humidity, Temp, Pressure)

Why it's worth it

The View Plus tracks radon, PM2.5, CO2, VOCs, humidity, temperature and air pressure, then charts all of it in a free app with alerts. It's the only monitor here that measures radon, and that alone makes it the one worth mounting on a wall.

Radon is the reason to buy this one. It's the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, and the EPA attributes about 21,000 deaths a year to it. You can't smell it or see it. The View Plus uses alpha-spectroscopy detection updated hourly — the same approach professional continuous monitors use, not the cheaper electrochemical shortcut. A hardware-store test kit gives you one snapshot; this gives you a running average as seasons and basement humidity shift.

The rest of the sensor list is unusually broad for a home device. You get particles, CO2, VOCs, humidity, temperature and air pressure alongside the radon. Owners regularly describe watching a VOC alert fire after someone deep-cleaned the floors with something harsh, or catching a humidity climb that turned out to be a failing A/C. That's the real payoff: patterns over weeks, not a single reading you stare at once.

From our review of 5 indoor air quality monitors, by Catherine Hayes, Senior Editor, Home & Appliances

What we like

• +Radon is the reason to buy this one
• +The rest of the sensor list is unusually broad for a home device
• +The app doesn't hold the basics hostage
• +Set against the Temtop, this is a trade of screen for reach

What to know

• –Owner feedback is rougher than the spec sheet suggests
• –It runs on batteries, which is great until you add a second Airthings sensor
• –There's no offline mode