Product Library / Indoor Air & Comfort
Research profile · last verified 2026-08-02Awair Element
Exactly which product this is[1]
- Model number
- Not established
- Generation
- Not established
- Region this page covers
- US
- Also sold or listed as
- Awair Element
“Not established” means we have not sourced that detail yet — not that the product has no model number, generation or regional variant. We publish the gap rather than filling it.
Compatibility
| Ecosystem | Support | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Home | InconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[1][4] | Unknown, and the distinction from the neighbouring Airthings record is worth understanding because it is exactly the kind of difference this catalogue exists to preserve. Awair's product page enumerates three integrations — IFTTT, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa — and names Apple, HomeKit and Siri nowhere. That is silence, not a refusal: Airthings, one record over, wrote 'Apple HomeKit is not currently supported' and therefore earns a 'none', while Awair simply stopped listing after three. An omission from a three-item list is not a denial. There is no Matter route either — a CSA-IoT keyword search for 'Awair' returns nothing, validated against a known positive — so no standards path supplies what the vendor has not claimed. Recorded unknown rather than none because nobody, on either side, has published an answer. |
| Amazon Alexa | PartialPartial support — see the catch[1] | First-party and real: Awair lists Amazon Alexa among the three integrations it supports, alongside IFTTT and Google Assistant. Recorded partial rather than full because the support is a bare name in a list — no capability description, no command inventory, and no statement of which of the five readings reach Alexa or whether they can drive routines. On a monitor whose entire output is numbers, whether those numbers are readable or merely present is the question, and it is unanswered. Runs through Awair's cloud. |
| Google Home | PartialPartial support — see the catch[1] | Same standing as Alexa and from the same three-item list, with the same gap: the platform is named, the capability is not described anywhere. Partial for that reason. |
| SmartThings | InconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[1] | Unknown. SmartThings does not appear in Awair's three-item integration list and no Samsung-side documentation naming this monitor was located. As with Apple, this is a silence rather than a stated absence, and there is no Matter fallback that could supply a route. |
| Home Assistant | InconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[1] | Unknown from the vendor's side — Awair's page names Home Assistant nowhere, listing only IFTTT, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Recorded unknown rather than partial because this record did not verify a Home Assistant integration for this model from the counterparty side, and this catalogue does not assert a platform cell it has not sourced. What is worth flagging for anyone investigating: the documented Local API described under maintenance is precisely the kind of interface a local integration would use, so the raw capability for a local, cloud-free integration demonstrably exists on this device. That is a statement about the hardware, not a claim about Home Assistant support. |
? Inconclusive means we researched that ecosystem and the evidence doesn’t settle it — the catch says why, and the sources are listed below. It is a statement about the available evidence, never a verdict on the product. A Setup Check researches your exact setup where the official sources don’t answer.
Protocols: WIFI · BLUETOOTH[1][4][5][9]
Needs before it works: No hub. The Element joins your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi directly and talks to Awair's service; Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy handles setup. There is no bridge to buy and no border router to own — which, set against the Thread-based monitor in this same subcategory, is the simpler arrangement even though it is the less local one. The genuinely interesting exception is described under maintenance: Awair documents a Local API that serves readings from the device itself over your LAN, so the network path does not have to end at Awair's servers.[1][3]
What it can do[1]
You can tell it to
None documented by the vendor
It reports
- Air quality reading
- Temperature reading
- Humidity reading
Listed capabilities are what we could establish from vendor documentation. An ability missing here is unestablished — not necessarily absent.
Subscription reality[1]
✓ Works without a subscription: Yes.
Vendor account required: Not established — we have not sourced this yet.
No subscription. The Awair Home app is free on iOS and Android and no plan, tier or paywall was found gating any advertised function. There is no consumable — an air-quality monitor has no filter — so the ongoing cost after purchase is electricity. Recorded as an absence rather than a positive 'none': Awair does not make a written 'no fees ever' commitment of the kind that would earn the stronger reading.
Maintenance reality[1][3]
- Batteries: None — mains powered
- Works without the internet: Not established — we have not sourced this yet. It does not mean the product fails without the internet.
- It measures five things, with published ranges — which is more transparency than most of this category offers: PM2.5 (fine dust) 0–1,000 µg/m³, chemicals (VOCs) 0–60,000 ppb, CO2 400–5,000 ppm, temperature −40 to 125°C, and humidity 0 to 100%. No radon, which is the one thing its more expensive neighbour in this subcategory does measure. THE FEATURE THAT SETS THIS APART, and the reason cloudDependent is false, is Awair's documented Local API. In the company's own words it 'allows you to review real-time sensor readings without the need for Wi-Fi' — once enabled, 'your Awair device has the ability to host data on a server that lives on the device. It is like a miniature website with webpages that you can view in your browser (or use software to programmatically retrieve data), but only while you are connected to the same Local Area Network (LAN).' Awair notes the server sits behind your router's firewall. That is a real local read path, documented by the manufacturer, on a product from a company with a cloud-shutdown history — which is a combination worth noticing rather than glossing. It is a READ path: the Local API serves sensor data, and this record does not claim it replaces the app for setup or configuration.
- Security updates: No security-update support date is on record for this model yet. We haven't yet checked whether Awair publishes one, so this is a gap in our research — not a statement about the manufacturer.
The catch
The thing worth knowing about Awair is a company fact, and it needs stating precisely rather than dramatically. Awair has shut devices down. Its own notice reads: 'many of our oldest devices (Glow/Glow-C/Awair V1) are no longer able to update firmware... we will be sunsetting these oldest devices starting on November 30, 2022. What is sunsetting? Your device will still perform the same quality air monitoring, but the data it collects will no longer be accessible via the Awair Home App. Additionally, the Hobbyist API will no longer be serving any requests.' The company even warns owners not to reset those units, because a reset severs the pairing for good. That is a real, dated precedent for what this manufacturer does with hardware it no longer wants to support — and it applies to the Glow, the Glow-C and the Awair V1. It does NOT apply to the Element. The Element is a separate, currently sold, currently supported product with its own live support section, and this record will not let a sibling generation's fate stand in for it. Both halves of that matter: the history is a legitimate reason to think about longevity before spending $299, and pretending it describes this device would be false. Second, and this is the part that genuinely changes the calculation: the Element ships a documented Local API. Awair's own words — it lets you 'review real-time sensor readings without the need for Wi-Fi', with the device hosting 'a server that lives on the device', reachable from your own network behind your router's firewall. A monitor that can serve its own readings locally is a monitor that keeps working the day the vendor's cloud does not, which is an unusually direct answer to the concern the company's own history raises. Third, the integrations are thin. Three names — IFTTT, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa — with no description of what any of them can do, and nothing at all about Apple, SmartThings, Home Assistant or Matter. No Matter certificate exists under the Awair name either, checked and validated. Fourth, what it does not measure: no radon, where the $299.99 Airthings beside it does. Five sensors against seven, at effectively the same price — though Awair publishes its measurement RANGES, which Airthings does not, and for anyone who cares whether a CO2 reading tops out at 5,000 ppm that is real information.
Who it's for
A good fit for someone who wants CO2, particulates and VOCs monitored and cares about owning the data — the documented Local API means the readings are available on your own network, in a browser or to your own software, which almost nothing else in this category offers. That makes it the sensible pick for a tinkerer, or for anyone who has been burned by a cloud shutdown and wants a device that can outlive the service. It suits an Alexa, Google or IFTTT household at the level of 'the integration exists', which is as much as Awair documents. Think twice if you want radon — this does not measure it, and the Airthings monitor beside it at effectively the same price does. Think twice if you are an Apple household: Awair claims nothing about HomeKit or Siri, holds no Matter certificate, and the honest answer is that nobody has published one. And weigh the company history with a clear head: Awair sunsetted its Glow, Glow-C and V1 devices in November 2022, cutting off app and API access. That is not what happened to this product, and it is a fair thing to think about before spending $299 on hardware from the same manufacturer.
Sources & method
Numbered sources below back the facts marked with the matching number above. This is a research profile: compiled from manufacturer documentation, certification registries, and published testing — we state facts, not verdicts, and we have not physically tested this unit. How we work →
- [1] Awair, Awair Element product page — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-02Backs: Product identity, Price, Protocols, Required hub or bridge, Subscription, Maintenance, Power source, Installation, App platforms, Capabilities, Market availability, Amazon Alexa compatibility, Google Home compatibility, Apple Home compatibility, SmartThings compatibility, Home Assistant compatibility
- [2] Awair Support, "Legacy Device Support" — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-02Backs: Service status
- [3] Awair Support, "Awair Element Local API Feature" — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-02Backs: Maintenance, Required hub or bridge
- [4] CSA-IoT certified products database, keyword search — registry lookup, verified 2026-08-02Backs: Protocols, Apple Home compatibility
- [5] getawair.com/products/element, re-read 2026-08-09. Connectivity specification, quoted as published: 'Bluetooth 4.1 (Bluetooth Low Energy)' and 'Working Wi-Fi connection: 802.11 b/g/n @ 2.4 GHz'. No functional description accompanies the Bluetooth entry on the page. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-09Backs: Protocols
- [6] unrecorded — the migrated lifecycle.research stamp carried no source field — migrated hand stamp, verified 2026-08-02Backs: Research status
- [7] support.getawair.com, 'Awair Element Local API Feature' article — fetch attempted 2026-08-18 and refused with HTTP 403 Forbidden (control: getawair.com/products/element fetched successfully the same day). The product page carries 'Access your air data from anywhere with the free Awair app' and a 'Wifi Connection' system requirement, and says nothing about offline behaviour. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-18
- [8] FCC grant 2AF65AWAIR0HD3E (BITFINDER, INC., product code AWAIR0HD3E, Equipment Class "AWAIR Rev3E"). Operating Frequencies: a single range, "2402-2480 MHz — Original Equipment — 2019-09-24". Exhibits are "WLAN 2G Test Report" and "Bluetooth LE Test Report"; there is no 5 GHz test report and no second frequency range. — registry research, verified 2026-08-21Backs: Wi-Fi bands it can use
- [9] Matter Distributed Compliance Ledger, vendor registry (read 2026-08-22 via tools/dcl-lookup.mjs). Awair does not appear under any name tried: 'awair'. The DCL's vendor registry was enumerated to EXHAUSTION on 2026-08-22 via tools/dcl-lookup.mjs: substring queries were unioned until the distinct-VID count reached 833, which is the record count the tool itself reports scanning per query (the union of a/e/i/o/u/y reached 832; the last holdout was 'SLV GmbH', a vowel-free name, recovered by adding l/s/t). Every vendor in the ledger was therefore inspected, not searched for. — registry-lookup (DCL enumeration by vendor ID, with known-positive control), verified 2026-08-22Backs: Protocols
- [10] SmartHomeWorkflow record maintenance (BQ-244 absence-marker blast-radius repair) — internal-review, verified 2026-08-27
Compatibility and lifecycle information reflects the last-verified date above and can change without notice (firmware updates, cloud-service changes, discontinuations). It is provided as-is, for information — verify with the manufacturer before purchasing. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Full terms: Terms of Service.