AQ9600, PM 0.3/2.5/10 Μm Air Quality Particle/Dust Detector/Counter

I bought this thing right before the Canada wildfires caught up with us in the northeast US. The picture above was after a few readings to get things stabilized. This is most deffinitly not a normal reading. I am in no way a professional, I just needed something to tell me whether my flow hood was blowing sterile air or not. For these purposes, this device seems to be fantastic. It reads zero along the inner square and starts to show small particles along the leading edge where the flow would whip around dirty air. The 50 second test time is fine, it gets the job done as long as you leave it completely alone during each run. I can reliably mark off my work area with this tool; I've had remarkable success working with cultures within this clean air bubble. I had purchased another similarly expensive unit that was not nearly as accurate as this one. So far so good.

I don't know, but suspect, that there are people, like myself, who purchase this product wanting to read/manage particle count (mold, voc) in their environment. Upon opening the box I was assaulted by a heavy stinking voc wave coming from the unit. Made me instantly ill. Left the unit outside overnight and it still heavily stunk the next morning. Having to smell it twice (once upon opening, again the next morning) made me quite ill for a day. I suggest to anyone considering purchasing this product to manage their air quality - DON'T DO IT.Placed one star only to be able to post this review. Should be 0.

It’s difficult to know how accurate the absolute measurements are, but it seems to check out comparatively from room to room, area to area. Seems to be one of the best options if you want to identify the dustiest areas of a building or determine a before vs after when installing an air filtration system.

It detects PM 0.3um and the price is amazing!!Like it when I first switch it on. Durable and well made outer case. Clear color rich LCD display which is easy to read even in the dark. It detects PM with the size 0.3um, 2.5um and 10um all at the same time. Choose from different sampling frequencies and test modes etc... Got temperature, humidity and memory for data storage too.There are two measuring units -- ug/m3 and piece/L.The smallest particle it can accurately count is up to 0.3um (In piece/L only, piece count make more sense than weight when particles are that small). The one I have got from Dylos can only detect particles up to 0.5um in size. And you know what, this one is even way cheaper.

There is undue confusion resulting from the HT / AQ designations for this device as a result I almost returned it--directions for HT were sent, upon started return seller emailed AQ pdf file which inspired me to take the product seriously. However, I don't have very much confidence in the absolute numbers relative to a 2000 dollar counter, but it does well with respect to relative numbers of particles in a 50 second sampling. For example, on the low .03 end approximately: inside 5000 +/- 2000, garage 12,000 +/- 4,000, outside 150,000 (I am in California). For true medical / scientific work this is a starter product that one will likely want or be required to graduate from. As a household product it will be invaluable in measuring progress in HVAC / Carpet cleaning and air filtration monitoring which is exactly what we wanted. So for many people I can recommend the product.

I used this to test the air quality of my flow hood. I read the manual to see how to switch it to particles / Liter and then took a base line reading in the room 30,000 0.3 um/L, I took a reading in the flow hood and kept hitting run to watch the hood go form 30K to 0 particles per liter. Works great.

The tester was working for only a few samples. It was working somewhat for about 8 samples, then it stopped reporting the particle counts. It only displays zeros now.Edit: Raising my review to 2 stars. The tester does work if the environment is not clean. There appears to be some calibration or firmware bug that if the environment is too clean, it does not register the particle counts and the final result becomes 0. If they can fix the firmware, this product would be good.

Unit worked first couple of times I tried it... and never again. Now readings all zeros. Sample fan runs for 38 of the 50 second sample interval; then stops. Readings all show zero. History shows 11 runs, first 8 or so before I received the unit, all numbers in the 35 to 50 range. After receipt the numbers were low, 6 to 8 for two readings, now zeros.Unit falsely advertises it has HCHO measurements (formaldehyde) - it doesn't.Third imported/no-name air test device that failed to work at all or as advertised. So I am done with imported junk. Unless a seller has a US storefront I can walk into, or an office I can visit, my dollar will stay in my pocket.