Hygrometers are tools used to measure relative humidity in the air. Relative humidity is the difference between moisture currently present in the air and the maximum amount of moisture the air could hold at that specific temperature.
To be more exact, the higher the temperature, the more moisture the air can carry. This is evident during winter and summer. In winter, air is very dry, whereas in summer it’s usually quite wet.
But why would you care about measuring humidity? There are actually many reasons for it. Perhaps you need to keep humidity in a room at a certain level, think about a wine cellar: these need to be at around 60% humidity for perfect wine conservation. With a hygrometer, you can see the current humidity of your wine cellar and then act accordingly to manipulate it to your desired value.
Or maybe you want to measure your house’s humidity, because mold has been forming recently and dust mites have started appearing, or you can feel your breathing has been a little weird recently. All of these are symptoms that indicate your home’s humidity might have gone crazy.
So, I compiled this list to show you the best hygrometers you could purchase online. All of the products are valuable, and they all work great. I included many different options so that you could find something that suits your needs.
Remember: there is no best hygrometer, there is the best hygrometer for you. I made the list as objective as possible, but since I cannot possibly know everyone’s needs, there is a chance you could not find what you are looking for.
Keep reading this article to learn what are the best hygrometers you can purchase today!
Quick Summary–These Are the Overall Best!
- Govee Bluetooth Hygrometer: this hygrometer is packed with features at a very reasonable price. It will be enough for most use cases, and there are no real downsides to it. 100% Recommended!
- Temp Stick Humidity Sensor: the best high-end hygrometer. Get this if you are looking for a reliable product with amazing features and don’t care about the price.
- Thermopro P50 Digital Hygrometer: get this hygrometer if you don’t care about extra features and you’re just looking for something simple to use.
What Makes a Hygrometer Good?
Before making a list of the best hygrometers, we have to consider what parameters we are going to take into account to create the list.
There are many hygrometers on the market, and it’s a matter of picking the right one for you. There are, however, some statistics that are crucial to any hygrometer, and that will affect its performance.
Not all features are equal, and I placed greater emphasis on stuff like accuracy and ease of use, since humidity is a serious matter that can greatly impact your life.
Types of Hygrometer
There are 10 different types of hygrometer, but realistically half of these are just slight variations of others, so I’m not going to list all of them.
Each hygrometer comes with its strengths and weaknesses, and each fits a specific situation. Here are the most common types of hygrometer:
- Electrical Hygrometers
These are by far the most common types of hygrometers, and for good reasons. They have good accuracy, they are easy to use, and more advanced models can also connect via Bluetooth to your phone.
Electrical hygrometers measure humidity by calculating how moist is the air passing through two metal plates loaded with electricity.
- Mechanical Hygrometers
These are very popular as a science project in schools due to how simple they are to make. How do mechanical hygrometers measure humidity?
These tools use organic materials to control a needle. When the material absorbs moisture it becomes heavier, moving the needle. Conversely, if the environment is dry, the material will become lighter as a result of releasing water, moving the needle the other way.
- Dew Point Hygrometers
Dew point hygrometers consist of a polished metal mirror and they measure humidity by the dew point, which is when condensation begins on the metal mirror.
These instruments are the most precise of the bunch, but they aren’t very popular nowadays.
- Thermal Hygrometer
This device measure humidity by monitoring the change in thermal conductivity resulting from a change in humidity. Remember that higher humidity increases thermal conductivity.
- Psychrometers
A psychrometer measures humidity by reading the temperature of a dry bulb and of a wet bulb. When you know the air temperature you can then determine humidity by reading a psychometric chart.
Accuracy
Accuracy is very important when it comes to hygrometer. Some things like reptile tanks or greenhouses require specific humidity levels to let the organisms who live in it thrive.
Most hygrometers nowadays are quite accurate, even the lower end models promise an accuracy of 5 percent, which is pretty good.
However, you also need to do maintenance on your hygrometers. Sometimes they need recalibration, and you need to know how to calibrate them.
Accuracy in readings is also a factor to consider: digital displays usually offer much more precise readings, whereas analog hygrometers don’t always offer precise readings. Kind of like clocks: it’s hard to tell the exact time with analog ones.
Readability
How easy is it to read humidity on the device? This is very important because you might need to read it from a distance. For example, if you are measuring your wine cellar’s humidity, having to continually go down to check it would be inconvenient.
In these cases, it’s better to purchase a hygrometer with Bluetooth connectivity, so that you can check humidity from your phone.
Build Quality
Build quality matters, especially since humidity will take a toll on the device. Cheaply built hygrometers will break easily, meaning you will have to replace them often. Another issue of buying a poor-quality product is that you will have to recalibrate it much more often.
Extra features
There are other features that can come in very handy when you are picking a hygrometer. For example, the better models will save past humidity data and show it to you, so that you can keep track of the data and act accordingly.
Let’s say you want to keep humidity in your house below the 50% threshold suggested my mayo clinic. How would you do that without knowing how much humidity has been in your house in the past? How can you create a plan to lower your home’s humidity if you don’t know how high it is?
Other great features you could look for are the possibility to set up alerts when humidity falls off or spikes above a certain threshold, Wi-Fi and smart home connectivity, and battery life.
Good Value for Money
You get what you pay for is true for hygrometers as well. But do you actually need a higher-end product? Furthermore, not everyone needs a high-end product. For example, if you are measuring humidity inside your house, you don’t need anything fancy.
There are, on the other hand, situations where your humidity readings must be on point. For example, greenhouses with certain plants will need an extremely high-quality hygrometer to ensure the plants thrive.
It all depends on your needs, which is why I tried to include as many different hygrometers as possible, to ensure anyone could find something that suited their needs.
The 5 Best Hygrometer Gauges
Govee Bluetooth Hygrometer: The Overall Best Hygrometer
I can’t believe the best item on my list of Hygrometers is so cheap, and yet here we are. This device is crazy: it is accurate, durable, and has all the features you could dream of.
You can easily connect it to your phone via Bluetooth, and it offers connectivity up to 260ft/80m away. If it wasn’t enough, the device also offers data logging for up to 2 years, with the possibility of downloading it as a CSV file, and it comes with a large LCD display for easy readings even in poor visibility conditions.
You can’t go wrong by purchasing this unit, I absolutely recommend it to everyone. Unless you are looking for something extremely specific, like a precise hygrometer for a distant greenhouse or other special cases like that.
What are you waiting for? Start measuring your indoor humidity today with this excellent device!
Govee WiFi Hygrometer with Smart Humidity Sensor: Perfect for Smart Homes
Govee is killing it in the hygrometers niche. Here we have yet another fantastic product that is still reasonably priced!
It has outstanding accuracy (+-3% of reported value), it updates its humidity reports every 2 seconds, and it also has an alert function that warns you when the temperature and / or humidity go above or beyond the values you set.
If all of that wasn’t enough, it perfectly integrates with smart home systems.
The biggest downsides? It doesn’t support 5G WiFi connections, so be careful before purchasing one. Also, the hygrometer is NOT waterproof, so don’t expect to place it outside while it rains to measure humidity, you are just going to break it.
The Govee WiFi Hygrometer is the perfect device for smart homes, get yours today!
Thermopro P50 Digital Hygrometer: When all you Care About is Simplicity
The Thermopro P50 is perfect if you are looking for a simple device without all the bells and whistles. It doesn’t get any easier than this: place it in a room and it will measure its temperature and humidity levels with great accuracy (2-3% for humidity, 1 degree for temperature are the error margins)
It’s extremely cheap, but it’s still feature rich. This device is powered by 1 AAA battery, and the company claims it can last up to a year.
Still not convinced? Check out the over 70 thousand (yes, 70.000) reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.6 stars.
Goabroa Mini Hygrometer: Size DOES matter
This Hygrometer is crazy. Despite the size, it is actually pretty good. It is very small, but trust me, that’s a great feature to have. For example, other hygrometers wouldn’t be able to measure humidity levels in things like a guitar case or an incubator, and they’d also look weird in a reptile tank.
That’s where this hygrometer comes into play.
Despite the low price, the quality if off the roof: the company states a margin of error of 1% in its humidity readings! That’s wild. It’s better than higher-end products on this very list!
However, with such a small size also come many limitations. It has no extra features such as connectivity, and its LCD screen is also a bit hard to read at times.
Still, it’s an amazing product, especially if you need something that will fit into smaller environments like the ones I talked about earlier.
Temp Stick Humidity Sensor: Powerful High-End Hygrometer with Excellent Features
If you are looking for something more powerful, you’ve come to the right place. The Temp Stick Sensor is hard to beat when it comes to quality.
The sensor connects to your home’s WiFi connection, and it sends data directly to your phone or PC. You can easily keep humidity levels in check this way.
The sensor is powered by 2 AA batteries, and it can read any level of relative humidity, from 0% to 100%. Most lower-end hygrometers can’t read the full range of relative humidity and start at around 10%.
Warning: being able to read up to 100% relative humidity doesn’t make the stick waterproof. Direct exposure to water will damage the sensor so be careful when you place it.
Additionally, the sensor monitors and logs data 24/7, and you will be able to see how humidity and temperature has changed over time.
Another cool feature is that you don’t necessarily need a smartphone to check the data, as you can set the device to send you text message alerts that work even on older flip phones.
If you are lazy like me, you’ll also enjoy the fact that the device is already factory calibrated, but you can still recalibrate it if you wish. There are really no excuses for not getting this.
The biggest downside of this stick is its price. I mean, I get it, it is absolutely worth it, but for such a high price tag, it isn’t for everyone. Another complaint I have is that it can’t integrate with a smart home.
LaySco Mini Indoor Hygrometer: A Cute Little Mechanical Hygrometer
I had to include a mechanical hygrometer on this list. They are fascinating, and they don’t need batteries to function, reducing waste, always an admirable endeavor. Plus, not needing a battery means there is less stuff that could randomly break during use.
These hygrometers are extremely affordable, and yet they are accurate and small, meaning you can easily place them even in locations where other hygrometers wouldn’t fit.
The biggest issue I have with mechanical hygrometers is that they can be hard to read sometimes, although the company claims the humidity gauge is handcrafted with readability in mind. However, since they are so small, I’m not sure I agree with the company.
F.A.Q.
- How do hygrometers work?
Most hygrometers measure humidity by comparing the water moisture of the air that passes through their measuring unit and the maximum amount of moisture that air can hold at that temperature. This is why it’s called relative humidity.
- How do I calibrate my hygrometer?
The simplest way to calibrate a hygrometer is to purchase a calibration kit from Amazon and following the instructions. You can also simply use a working hygrometer you know is well calibrated and replicate the settings onto the new one.
- Are cheap hygrometers accurate?
Yes, even the cheapest unit on this list, the Goabroa Mini Hygrometer has an accuracy rating of 1%. It doesn’t get much more accurate than this.
- Do I need WiFi to operate a hygrometer?
It depends on the type of hygrometers you are using. The higher end ones will need WiFi to operate, take the Temp Stick for example. Access to Internet is crucial to send data to the connected devices. However, the list also includes hygrometers that don’t need internet to function well.
- Where should I place my hygrometer?
Hygrometers should be placed where you need to measure humidity, for example in your greenhouse or wine cellar, if you have such hobbies.
If you want to measure your house’s humidity level, my suggestion is to place your device in the room you and your family spend the most time in, as that’s where the humidity levels will impact your quality of life the most.
Conclusion
Here it is: my list of best hygrometers you could purchase! I strongly believe these are by far the best products you could purchase on the market at the moment. They have great features, offer excellent value for money, and I included something for everybody.
But, before rushing to purchase your very own device, you should ask yourself: why do you need one? Is it because you feel like humidity is impacting your life? Perhaps you feel lethargic and tired all the time without apparent reason. Or your breathing seems noticeably worse than it used to be.
Perhaps you love wine, and want to keep your wine cellar at the perfect humidity all the time. Or you have a reptile friend, and want the best for him!
Whatever the case, get the right hygrometer for you. Different products thrive in different use cases, and I can’t possibly predict what are your actual needs. That’s why I included as many different products as possible.
As you could see from this list, you don’t need anything fancy or expensive to measure humidity.
So, what are you waiting for? Purchase the best hygrometer today, and improve your quality of life!
