AirGradient let us know this morning they created a coupon for $10 off for anyone watching this video-use code WG8N2JG during checkout. They also just released a new 'ONE' version of the DIY Pro, with a few extra features. Let us know how you measure the air quality in your own home!
We get many orders with the coupon code applied so it should work. Please note that the code only works for the PRO/ONE/OPEN AIR kits and fully assembled units. Not for the basic kit.@@goury
Definitely interested in this but they really need a POE option for a more professional installation (and i'm a big fan of wired networking vs a smart home full of wifi devices). I'm sure this is something they can do in a future revision.
Yeah, saddly however the IoT world has mostly shunned wired connections and gone full wireless. This device uses an ESP32, a very popular wireless IoT microcontroller. Its usually much more accessible for these small boards to use wifi only and very few Ethernet connected ones even exist.
Its ESP32 based and there are ESP32 boards with POE out there. Sure you would have to do some DIY and ESPHome config modification, but you absolutely can make this thing wired.
I am HVAC Specialist and worked in some high rise dorms that got renovated from old systems to new . Some of the buildings had CO2 sensors that were supposed to increase outside airflow to large meeting room when occupied if co2 went up. But the controls company never really set up the scheme correctly, and the sensors were never calibrated or tested . Maybe these days it is different but the whole HVAC approach is now totally different after covid. Anyway I wish I had one of these Air Gradient units to play around with then ( retired now). I may have to get one to try out at the community radio station to see how we can improve air quality.
I have noticed a lot more air cleaning involved... and sometimes it seems people retrofit filters that totally kill the fan, which is not sized for the type of filtration being added!
@@GeerlingEngineering Yes you certainly take the fans into account. To do a proper commissioning and balancing you are supposed to take the air flow at every outlet , calculate the cfm, and then adjust the shiv size on the air handler to increase the air flow as needed by changing the fan rpm. But of course you would also need to check the current draw of the fan and make sure you stay within specs of the motor.
Thank you so much, I've been looking for something like this for ages as I run 3D printers in my home office and I need to know how well I'm ventilating things, and just how bad some of these resins are. That coupled with the Home Assistant compatability makes it a no-brainer, I've ordered one this morning.
How timely! Was just looking for such a thing on Amazon a couple days ago and was not impressed by their offerings. I just ordered 2 of these in kit form and slapped the coupon on it. Thanks, Jeff!
I’ve recently got HA running on my network and dove down this rabbit hole with ESPHome. My first setup for IAQ was a QT PY ESP32 Pico with a BME688. Never attempted to double check the accuracy but after a few weeks I noticed some correlations between temp & hum and the rise in IAQ. Thought it was pretty interesting.
Just ordered the AirGradient One for my home. My wife is currently in the hospital with pneumonia and has been for a week. I just want to do anything I can to make sure she has the best air quality at home so as to reduce the chance of any infection from bad air.
That was one of the original motivations for me to monitor air; I bought a cheap Temtop air quality monitor that's battery powered, and measured parts of the house when I noticed some days I was more tired, then I found out a few parts of the house had terrible airflow/ventilation and fixed that by adding a fan and running our HVAC fan more often. For allergens and pathogens, some are easier to identify than others :(
I have a couple pi zero w with pimoroni enviro+ hats and pms5003 sensors. They provide a wide range of air quality information as well as temp and pressure. The Luftdata project has data from around the world fed by these sensors. Sadly not many in the US.
this is cool stuff, I've DIY'd a CO2 sensor and bought an Ikea Vindstyrka, but something all-in-one like this that's also compatible with Home Assistant out of the box sounds amazing, especially the outside one since it's not trivial to DIY a weatherproof enclosure that lets air in properly. I'd be interested in whether you lose any of the calibration and stuff when you reflash them to ESPHome
That's a good question; I know the sensors on their own are fairly accurate (they're some of the most accurate for the price range you can get), but the calibration of the dual sensors in the outdoor unit might require some of the open source code AirGradient maintains. I haven't tested that model with my Home Assistant setup.
They recently had a blog post about Linear Regression and their outdoor models humidity readings. I'm going to be looking at integrating that with my outdoor ESPHome config
If you want something more simple than HA for getting dashboarding for these devices. You can use docker to quickly spin up a prometheus collector and grafana. You can use templates already available for grafana to get basically the airgradient dashboard and have a configurable setup. I really like my air gradient.
Definitely an option if you want something simple! I used to go that route until I set up a Home Assistant Yellow... now I dump pretty much everything from home into HA instead (though I still track networking stuff in my Prometheus/Grafana instance!).
I put a ESP32 D1 Mini with relay board on my Heat Recovery Ventilator (which is just a box that transfers temperature from old stale air to incoming fresh outside air). I have Home Assistant automatically turn on the ventilator using the ESPHome relay when CO2 gets over 900 ppm and it shuts off the HRV ventilator when any one of my three CO2 sensors dip below 600 ppm. I've been running the system for over a year and it works amazingly well.Running the ventilator all the time is a waste of energy so this way, I get on-demand fresh air when it's needed.
That's a great idea! I have been eyeing a Panasonic HRV to install in my house where an old fireplace air intake was (since boarded up), and was lamenting the fact it had no automation built in with my HVAC. I could probably rig something up to turn it on (or raise/lower speeds) when more fresh air is needed.
Yeah, you definitely want Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) systems to help make sure you've got good quality air from the outside and bring that into the space where humans need to be breathing.
When covid started my wife got really scared about viruses lurking in our house, so I bought some Airthings sensors and automatic window shutters that I connected to Home Assistant. The Airthings sensors measure CO2 levels in the house and the shutters provide ventilation when needed. The Home Assistant dashboard shows a big green signal that everything is ok, which makes my wife feel save & happy. And I have a ton of interesting data. win-win. I did not use a ventilation system as that needs maintenance, and buying, installing and operating such a system would probably cost me more than the heat I lose when the shutters are open for a while.
I've had one running in my office since not long after your first video on the topic. It's amazing to watch the CO2 levels, and I ordered a few additional PCBs to build more.
I looked into air quality measuring today and ordered some parts from AliExpress. And now I found this video. Immediately ordered a One DIY Kit. Thanks!
Your video on air gradient a couple years back motivated me to learn soldering. Now that original air gradient is monitoring my garage air and the garage door status, and lets me open/close the garage door from home assistant.
Very cool! Soldering (and desoldering) is an extremely helpful skill for tinkering, building, and repairing electronics. I'm so glad my Dad taught me the basics when I was a kid!
This is true! Though they might be able to make the board indicate the direction a little better through the silkscreen at least... or maybe a future revision could solder the thing directly to the board!
Achim from AirGradient here. Our latest version of the monitor and kit now have an ESP32-C3 microcontroller directly on the main board. So we don't use the D1 mini anymore.
Where I've been lucky enough to specify control room architecture (for engine test / development facilities) I've always specified 6 to 8 changes of air per hour for the control room with test cells running a slight depression. This keeps the air fresh (and the Engineers awake) and prevents any engine exhaust or blow by leaks from getting into the control room. I leave the design to people who know how to get that level of air exchange without making the control room draughty.
I am using the tuya air monitor which have relays on the units so I can directly trigger equipment to counter abnormal levels in humidity, temperature, co2, pm2.5, pm5, or tvoc. It also has cloud api integration for various services, and has at least several months of 5 minute logs of all of the monitored sensors available from their app.
@@barygol True, but it is also relative. I don't need to know the absolute numbers, I just know that if it is above 800 3 hours before bedtime, I should ventilate the house a bit if I want to wake up rested the next day.
@@barygol Maybe, but it is for home use. I know that if the co2 on my unit is above 700ppm when I go to bed I won't wake up feeling rested. So if I see it is 900 2 hours before bed time, I can increase ventilation so that I will have a good day tomorrow. I did test the ndir and tvoc sensors to verify that they are different and not a combined sensor by using rubbing alcohol and a can of soda. My unit claims to have dual ndir for improved accuracy. When I initially got the sensor my air was 1700 - 2600 ppm. Being able to control the ventilation to reach an ideal level without being excessive and spending too much on heat and cooling has been life changing.
In Europe I quite like the Aranet 4. At the time I bought it, it was one of the few options with a decent sensor for CO2. As I recall that was a fairly significant chunk of the cost of the device. Their other stuff is mainly aimed at industrial applications, but I believe there is an integration for home assistant now over Bluetooth LE.
I also own a Aranet4, had a huge impact on my life, reduced my headaches by 80%, better sleep, less tiredness over the day. Closed windows and doors in a room will increase the amount of CO2 in no time, wasn't aware how fast the air would be used...insane device!
I notice these devices don't cover Carbon Monoxide. They do Carbon Dioxide (CO2), but not plain CO. But CO is odorless, tasteless, and commonly created by lighting fires or using natural gas powered systems, and can be quite deadly. Now, you don't want to get into the fire alarm/CO alarm category, because as you've said they have a lot more regulations you have to get through. But a Carbon Monoxide data logger could be very useful, when combined with the appropriate types of alarm devices.
True; though in my own house I have CO monitors by the washer/dryer (it's electric, but there's a vent from the outside there, near where our HVAC outlet is), and another near the HVAC and water heater. I have wondered about getting that data into my Home Assistant instance, right now they're just 'dumb' monitors that blare if the level's too high.
I’ve had a DIY version of something similar using a Pimoroni Enviro+ for a few years. However, as your dad says it’s the software that works the magic and the software running the Pi version leaves a lot to be desired. Placed an order for one of these to try out. Thanks for the coupon!
I only have a modified IKEA Vindriktning with an esp32 in it. I see AirGradient is not impressed by it (only pm2.5), and I think I agree. You get what you pay for, I guess. Probably getting one of these when I move in November
Even just PM2.5 can be useful though! I found out there were a few things we would cook that would produce an inordinate amount of particulate matter. Even though there wasn't much visible smoke, we decided to run the exhaust fan in the kitchen and that cuts down on it a lot.
I get much higher readings from the Ikea sensor sitting right next to my Airgradient, both running ESPHome so I don't trust the Ikea one as an overall accurate device
Am i missing something?, can't see the link to your esphome setup. I've always thought it odd we go outside for fresh air, but when we pull that same air into our homes/ cars we filter it!
Commercial HVAC systems can have CO2 sensors for determining circulation. “Whole Home Ventilation” is also becoming common that brings some outside air in while running the fan at a lower speed at an interval.
Just ordered an Outdoor, and even being heavily import taxed here in Denmark 🇩🇰 I can’t wait to receive it and see what the particle count does when my neighbor tries to burn wet wood in their wood burning stove 🤔🙄 Also… forgot to add the discount code, contacted customer support and got instant friendly reply 👍👍👍🙏
This is super neat, I'm thinking I might buy this and fix up my old air exchanger I have in the basement. It should be feasible to automate the air exchanger turning on with a smart plug with the data from this sensor in Home Assistant.
Had the Outdoor up and running for a couple of weeks now. It's just a nice piece of kit, assembling is a 5 minute job, setting it up another 5 minutes... And it's quite interesting ( scary 🤔 ) to watch how the PM2.5 values rise when the neighbors wood burning stoves gets fired up around the house ♨ Temperature measurements are way of in cold temperatures, but I got a great response from Airgradient, and they are working on a fix. Just ordered an Airgradient One for indoor use - thanks for making me spend money Jeff 😁
We are currently developing an algorithm for colder temperatures and testing it right now and it looks like it going to improve the accuracy tremendously.
I've definitely been keeping an eye on the solutions available, and had heard of AirGradient before. Also looking at environment monitoring in general for both indoor and outdoor. Always tied to how well it works with Home Assistant. We have ane electronic air filter on our fan system, so I'd really like to see how well it does cleaning our air in the house. One thing we don't have yet is a fresh air intake, but we got a quote to add one from the HVAC company we work with. Right now the biggest hurdle for us is cost. AirGradient's options are definitely something on my list now.
Yeah, I don't have fresh air exchange at my house either, we just rely on the leaky windows... :O If/when we replace the windows, I'll probably bundle up adding an air exchanger too.
I've built two of the originals, and have been running them on home assistant, as well. Still haven't got round to designing a printable case for them. Maybe one day. For now, they won't, except when they crash, but it's quick to reboot them.
Shop seems to be down as far as I can tell but I'm very excited about this, I had been planning to build my own but this is much better than I what I probably would have built.
This isi such an important conversation as the correlation between CO2 concentration and COVID-19 is really similar. If CO2 is high, the risk fo COVID-19 is high. Thanks for this.
Thank you for this - I just ordered a kit. I'm pretty sure I know what it's going to tell me, but I don't have a lot of options to change things. I'm in an apartment with only south facing windows, and no real vent to the outside (bathroom vent). But, at least I'll know for sure!
We need a one monitor device with multiple sensors, each can be placed in different rooms or levels. They are expensive to buy one for every room or level. I was feeling so tired and sleepy most of my time home and I was wondering if the oxygen level is low due to lack of air flow.
I'd love to be able to use this with NodeRed. Not seeing any support for that at the moment. Would be awesome if the firmware supported MQTT. Guess I have some learning to do.
Ordered an airgradient off the back of this video and it arrived last week. Works flawlessly and can highly recommend. Just need to get it flashed and integrated into home assistant now!
I am in an apartment building with trees around the building with a lot of surface roots. When it rains the ground remains moist and wet for several days afterward. This results in mould and mildew forming in the soil. As the area dries the wind generated around the building raises the mold and mildew spores into the air and into the building through the pressure intake. The results are regular allergy issues. Each apartment is about 400 sq ft. It was built in 1974. Originally the apartments had transoms over the doors to allow fresh air circulation from the hallways where the building intakes dump it. But those were eliminated when drug addicts and others discovered they could be used to gain entry to the apartments. I found my Honeywell air filter which is near HEPA catches items like cat litter dust, cat dander and stray fur but it is not clear how effective it is against mold and mildew. The Air gradient would allow me to determine other contributing factors such as fine particulates.
I live in Belgium. Since the pandemic, ALL new residential buildings have a CO2 controlled D ventilation system. These buildings are called "BEN woning", in which the energy consumption is amazingly low. Unfortunately, the indoor tobacco smoke (very common in Europe) of the neighbors turn these buildings into boxes of permanent inhalation of nicotine and formaldehyde. I haven't find a sensitive sensor to measure the air quality in my apartment. There are some nights in which the tobacco smoke is so intense that I bleed through my nose and throat but the meter still scoring the air quality as excellent! I'd like to try your product.
I have been running an AG Pro v4.2 since your last video on AQM. Now I have two running custom MQTT based firmware to integrate with home assistant in a more customizable manner. Also had a LOT of issues getting ESPHome to work properly on my C3s that I replaced the 8266s with. Probably a me issue more than anything but I said to hell with it and wrote my own code. I am excited to get my hands on the new v9 boards but I feel like the removal of the pin headers for the ESP32 chip is a step backwards. Maybe the Pro version could have headers but the prebuilt has the soldered chip?
@@turbo2ltr well, yes, but no. Currently, the code is a heap of shit that only barely works and still has a memory leak for some reason so the damn thing reboots every hour or so. Once I have that sorted out there will be a pr on my github. TheMrDec.
This is awesome! Thanks AirGradient! Since I've been monitoring my indoor air quality at home, one surprise has been how much and how fast cooking degrades the air quality. Even when sometimes the change is enjoyable - baking bread or apple pie may introduce VOCs, but it's hard to argue it is unpleasant!
Picked up an Aranet4 earlier this year. I was surprised to see just how high the CO2 levels in my bedroom got to overnight. I think I might need to get into this sensor and HA over Christmas.
I worked 10 years for a company they I loved. We evolved along the years and moved to a building in a very good place. I got close friend with the owners with time. The new building central AC was horrible, some places were cold and the desk besides it was hot, we bought small thermometers/hygrometers to show how bad it was. The owners tried to fix it several times to no avail. Once one asked me if tone of the attempts had changed it I said: "Look at the tables" almost every table had medicine: nasal sprays, nasal drops, books of paper tissue, etc. With time they discovered the story of the building (it was a new building very good, with very good structure and fire proofing. I was elected the safety inspector by the workers (this is mandatory in Brazil) because I had TOC and was annoying about details and had good transit with the owners. But...with time the story was made clear. There was an error in building it that differed from the plans. This made impossible to bring and install the central AC originally projected. It was a central AC but it wasn't: there was one unit per floor. So a smaller that could be disassembled one was installed. This was the start of the problems. At that time those small cheap Chinese air quality devices weren't available. I have three now that I use at home and they are mostly OK with few problems an they are not connected to the cloud. One day the company was sold to another one that was bought by a very well known fund. I left the company and took a sabbatical: in one month my respiratory health went so so better that I could not believe. At another one that I worked before that one It was on a center with several short buildings in a beautiful place in the end of the world. There was a huge, I mean HUGE central separated from the building for the central AC for all and to produce compressed air to the pneumatic mail (yes it had one just like the movie Brazil, very cool). They turned it off at 20:00 I rarely worked late because that place was literally at the end of the world. But we had a project that was not going well and I did it for a while. At 20:00 when they turned off we realized one thing :THE NOISE IT PRODUCED WAS *HUGE* you get used to it with time and don't even notice. CAT phones have and air sensor attached but it only tests TVOC.
I have 3 Aranet4 home sensors, and already see a noticeable difference in when I air out my home, having a visible indicator is much better than to guess or do it at random I am more inclined to air out my home instead of keeping my windows shut, to keep in the heat/keep out the heat
BTW, Airthings can also be connected to Home Assistant via Bluetooth BLE. I have one Airwave plus connected like this, and apart from disconnecting and reconnecting and producing a little spotty lines in the graphs it's just great. No PM-measerument though.
Personally I have a cheaper version that seems to perform as well, though with a plastic casing instead of metal. My Dad's been loving the DataVac for his work jobs, especially when he has a large piece of equipment and a lot to clear out!
We had problems at a small office building. Many employees having URI issues and one would lose her voice after 30 minutes. They moved her to another building. The problems were exacerbated after there was water damage to one ninety foot outside wall. The entire wall was abated, but tests indicated high levels of mold in all four zones. Unfortunately, there were no specific levels for mold (thirty years ago). After I retired, my URI issues ceased.
The Undecided with Matt Farrell channel is providing updates about his Net-Zero Home build, and air quality is something he's talked about a great deal. If particular interest would be the Energy Recovery Ventilator system.
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is real. I worked at a place that had it. It was an old coffee warehouse built (I think) in the 20's and was a brick fortress that could withstand a nuclear attack. In the 80's it was renovated into an office (prime location in Chicago's Downtown) and sealed up completely. Saving energy was the thing then. I started having sinus problems soon after I started working there. But was it me? Soon before I left the company, they sent around a survey with a lot of questions directed toward such related health issues. I don't know the results, if "they" told anybody or if any corrective action was taken. The company itself folded a few years later, which was a good thing, actually, and the space was divided up to different businesses.
Could a version of these replace existing stand alone fire alarm / smoke detectors? A drop in replacement of a dumb sensor with one providing data would be great. And I like the five year battery because mine are always chirping for new batteries.
Good question, but no-these are not a substitute for fire/smoke detection :( It would be nice if they could make a model that does it all, but right now that's not their main focus. Smoke detectors have a lot of other regulations to go through.
The university of vienna has also implemented air quality monitoring within lecture halls and the such, so that the people know when to open some windows.
You can get a very precise infrared co2 sensor part for around 10$ and wire it to a wemos d1 mini which is 2$ to make a 12$ co2 sensor that works completely locally.
Good question! In the radio station the ambient noise level is around 35 dB and it is impossible to hear the sound of the tiny fan. In my house, upstairs I've never noticed it, but in my office that I have sound treatment in, and the noise floor is about 32 dBa, if there's no other sound present, I can hear a very faint whirring. It's not bad at all, as the fan is run at low rpm.
At work were trying to find a pm 2.5 micron sensor that will survive an industrial enviroment without dieing every month. We use the data to control out dust collection equipment. So far we either can get very expensive sensors which cannot size the dust, or sensors that size the dust but die every month. And the sensor company says we can't calibrate or clean the sensor without disrupting the laser sensor. So we have to throw it out and start over. We just can't find a sensor (yet) that seems to work.
I've always had a fan running pretty much 24/7. If I'm in a room the fan is on. Still air has always felt weird to me. I don't know if this makes me weird or anyone else has this issue.
@@GeerlingEngineering I definitely look odd outside living in a block of flats and having a condenser unit (portable split AC) with the pipe coming out through the window. I'm on a ground floor and whilst it's easy to install/remove the unit, it requires a lot of taping to seal the gaps otherwise it's a bit ineffective. Just ordered an air purifier because I got a 3D printer (Bambu X1C) and I want to make sure the air is ok especially when using non PLA plastics.
To me, humidity matters the most. If I can get humidity in the 35-43% range, I don't have the need for fans. I always travel with a small 18650-powered fan. It makes a world of difference when I'm away from home.
I wish, but no... at my house I have an AirThings Wave, which does require a cloud account, but I can get it's data through to Home Assistant still using Bluetooth.
Great video. I don't know much and can't really do anything now, but after I bought my home, I found a builder, Matt Risinger who posts videos about building science and why you want a net zero home or close to it and how to avoid some air issues. For residential, he recommends an ERV hvac system, among other things. His videos are good, and I learn a lot.
I have a link in the description for ESPHome config, but the Prometheus config is in the same repository: github.com/geerlingguy/airgradient-prometheus
Yes, in fact! Matthias Wandel has done some very good quantitative reviews of devices like air purifiers, space heaters, etc. I wonder if Project Farm has too-he would be another good source.
@@GeerlingEngineering Thank you! They, and of course you, are at the top of my list of must watch content providers. Matthias has made a few things over the years (I'm sure with box joints!) but I don't have that luxury. I may make the suggestion to Project Farm.
M5 stack DIY is a cheaper almost plug and play solution. Not tried to esphome these. My wife bought standalone air quality monitors for our office rooms.
I wish there was a ethernet+POE version, as for large-scale corporate deployments that would be a much more efficent way of getting data and power to them.
A few people have mentioned this-they are often willing to incorporate suggestions into new versions, and possibly just add pads on the board for a custom solution... I would suggest asking about this option on their forum: forum.airgradient.com
I'll try that! I'm still going to pick one up to play with at my desk though - we have a very basic CO2 monitor already and it's been eye-opening seeing how much the level changes if we forget to open the windows... @@GeerlingEngineering
Ok enough sales pitch, show the metrics available to oss and what timeseries and dashboard you get in HA. Does it do temp, humidity, voc, co2, co, radon, any fire detection? …
It does Temp, Humidity, PM2.5 (and a few others), CO2, TVOC Index and NOx Index depending on what model you buy. Dashboard and time series depends on what you configure in HomeAssistsnt
Lower CO2 by adding house plants that are good at capturing CO2 such as bird's nest fern of snake plant. Also, in the talk room it would be ironic to use, if the room is regularly at 75F and 75% RH, dumb cane. Dumb cane absorbed 23.9% of the CO2 in 2 m^3 of air in less than 8 hours in one Malaysian study.
Plants don't actually absorb that much co2, otherwise they would gain multiple hundreds of grams worth of carbon alone a day. The only way for it to work would be to be lucky enough to have the room for walls of plants, or some kind of algae/mushroom-based air recycler
That, besides way too many business, and especially most real estate owners don't give a 💩 about occupant health. You're not going to convince them with a great dashboard.
I built my own sensor stack for indoor ait quality base don an ESP32 with many sensotrs and data in home assistant. I have them in each room. Each sensor is a BME680, measureing Barro Preasure, temp, humidity, CO2, Gas Resistance (ppm), IAQ calibration, A LUX sensor for measuring the ammount of light, and a SGP30 sensor for TVOC and Co2 per breath equivelent, mmWave Dopler Radar sensor to get any and all movements in the room, MIC/Speaker for new home assistant wake word system to control HA wqithout Google or Alexa and keep all my data and machine learning on my server. The sensor boxes, I also equip with a C11001 RF Transciever to control my remote control fans and stuff. This way when no ones in the room, fans and lights get turned off automattic. And then I have a full heatmap of sensor data from each room overlaying a floor plan and you can see where bad air is and good air is...
Nice! That's very similar to the concept of this hardware (it's just packaged more nicely with a pleasant enclosure you don't have to print/make yourself). That's how I was doing temp/humidity/pressure monitoring before, and it works great!
@@GeerlingEngineering that looks like it gives you spots on the board where you can solder on more sensors and just add the esphome code to read them. That's a cool idea. And makes it where you can buy off the shelf diy sensors on a 2.54mm pitch and just solder them straight in. Love the idea of that system. I built my own PCBs and 3D printed case. So that I can be modular. So a place where I only want to monitor temps, but don't need the c11001 tranciever. It's a pin systems that stacks. So each module is a mezzanine board for the previous. And the bottom has all pins mapped and each module uses dedicated pins in the stack and a 5v and 3v3 and the pins going up. So I can add my modules in any order and they all work perfectly. Wanted to make it so each room will have the exact sensor I need, but not have to pay for a bunch of one off PCB prints. This way I order 10 of each board and so I build what I need for each room
@@MikeHarris1984 Yep! I believe they used to sell just the bare PCB too, not sure if they do that anymore, or just the kits. But I believe they are able to deliver the PCB design as well.
Some people are, but it usually seems to play catch-up, since it's not an immediate cost/benefit item (e.g. it takes a while for people's health issues to be quantified on spreadsheets).
You're just not paying attention. ERVs are a finally a big thing now here in the States and air exchange requirements have been strengthened in building codes everywhere.
@@grafja They are in new construction, but the majority of homes and buildings have a lot less air cycling than they should. COVID really accelerated adoption, though, especially for retrofits!
If you want to link this to your cellphone via wifi...do you have to pay a subscription? Who gets the information when you open the app? Thanks...I am almost ready to buy.
Some manufacturer really needs to figure out a way to make these affordable. 100 bucks is an absurd price for anyone who isn't either rich or very deep into home automation, it's well above what any sane consumer would be interested in paying. When these go down to around 20-30 bucks is when they become interesting.
I think that price point would make it go from an "I'm interested in this" to "putting one all over the place like smoke detectors", but the problem is the individual sensors all cost a bit (like that CO2 sensor is $40-50 on its own!). It will take time for all the components can become less expensive, for now $100 is probably the bare minimum you'll find a kit with everything bundled together. AirGradient is not taking a large profit on these kits.
@@GeerlingEngineering Exactly, that really is the problem; the current price point really only makes it justifiable if you have the disposable income (or get sponsored 😄) and want the data *now*. I looked into a DIY solution but the components themselves are already more expensive than is really worth it. So let's hope some manufacturer cracks the code and makes the components themselves cheaper, and then these plug & play solutions should also drop in price pretty quickly.
@@daylen577 There are cheaper sensor modules available but then the accuracy really lacks. With our kits and monitors we try to avoid these very cheap sensors but go for the ones which gives you a good accuracy for home use and also a long lifetime.
The new version looks very nice. However, I'll probably try to order the older version which you featured ~2 years ago - considerably cheaper & parts are freely available are Aliexpress, etc.
They are pretty quiet-if I'm within a foot of mine, I can just make out the little fan that goes sometimes in the PM2.5 sensor. But it's not much, just a bit of a whisper.
AirGradient let us know this morning they created a coupon for $10 off for anyone watching this video-use code WG8N2JG during checkout. They also just released a new 'ONE' version of the DIY Pro, with a few extra features.
Let us know how you measure the air quality in your own home!
The code didn't work for me
@@goury Please email their support if you have an issue, they should help you get it sorted.
@@GeerlingEngineering already did, raising awareness
We get many orders with the coupon code applied so it should work. Please note that the code only works for the PRO/ONE/OPEN AIR kits and fully assembled units. Not for the basic kit.@@goury
I ordered this, and didn't know there was a code lol. Oh well. Its just $10
Definitely interested in this but they really need a POE option for a more professional installation (and i'm a big fan of wired networking vs a smart home full of wifi devices). I'm sure this is something they can do in a future revision.
Yeah, saddly however the IoT world has mostly shunned wired connections and gone full wireless. This device uses an ESP32, a very popular wireless IoT microcontroller. Its usually much more accessible for these small boards to use wifi only and very few Ethernet connected ones even exist.
This. IoT world needs to get their act in gear.
Its ESP32 based and there are ESP32 boards with POE out there. Sure you would have to do some DIY and ESPHome config modification, but you absolutely can make this thing wired.
The 'S' in IOT stands for security.
Put in the HVAC. Power aplenty.
Made my own since their pricing to EU with shipping was quite steep.
Did you document your process? Do you mind sharing?
Pricing for me in England seemed to be $25
@@Belioyt I just finished the code and going to do a writeup on by blog. Will link it on reddit then
@@accik Did you finish your write-up? I'm interested to hear how you did it.
Same
I am HVAC Specialist and worked in some high rise dorms that got renovated from old systems to new . Some of the buildings had CO2 sensors that were supposed to increase outside airflow to large meeting room when occupied if co2 went up. But the controls company never really set up the scheme correctly, and the sensors were never calibrated or tested . Maybe these days it is different but the whole HVAC approach is now totally different after covid. Anyway I wish I had one of these Air Gradient units to play around with then ( retired now). I may have to get one to try out at the community radio station to see how we can improve air quality.
I have noticed a lot more air cleaning involved... and sometimes it seems people retrofit filters that totally kill the fan, which is not sized for the type of filtration being added!
@@GeerlingEngineering Yes you certainly take the fans into account. To do a proper commissioning and balancing you are supposed to take the air flow at every outlet , calculate the cfm, and then adjust the shiv size on the air handler to increase the air flow as needed by changing the fan rpm. But of course you would also need to check the current draw of the fan and make sure you stay within specs of the motor.
Thank you so much, I've been looking for something like this for ages as I run 3D printers in my home office and I need to know how well I'm ventilating things, and just how bad some of these resins are. That coupled with the Home Assistant compatability makes it a no-brainer, I've ordered one this morning.
How timely! Was just looking for such a thing on Amazon a couple days ago and was not impressed by their offerings. I just ordered 2 of these in kit form and slapped the coupon on it. Thanks, Jeff!
I’ve recently got HA running on my network and dove down this rabbit hole with ESPHome. My first setup for IAQ was a QT PY ESP32 Pico with a BME688. Never attempted to double check the accuracy but after a few weeks I noticed some correlations between temp & hum and the rise in IAQ. Thought it was pretty interesting.
Just ordered the AirGradient One for my home. My wife is currently in the hospital with pneumonia and has been for a week. I just want to do anything I can to make sure she has the best air quality at home so as to reduce the chance of any infection from bad air.
That was one of the original motivations for me to monitor air; I bought a cheap Temtop air quality monitor that's battery powered, and measured parts of the house when I noticed some days I was more tired, then I found out a few parts of the house had terrible airflow/ventilation and fixed that by adding a fan and running our HVAC fan more often.
For allergens and pathogens, some are easier to identify than others :(
I have a couple pi zero w with pimoroni enviro+ hats and pms5003 sensors. They provide a wide range of air quality information as well as temp and pressure. The Luftdata project has data from around the world fed by these sensors. Sadly not many in the US.
this is cool stuff, I've DIY'd a CO2 sensor and bought an Ikea Vindstyrka, but something all-in-one like this that's also compatible with Home Assistant out of the box sounds amazing, especially the outside one since it's not trivial to DIY a weatherproof enclosure that lets air in properly. I'd be interested in whether you lose any of the calibration and stuff when you reflash them to ESPHome
That's a good question; I know the sensors on their own are fairly accurate (they're some of the most accurate for the price range you can get), but the calibration of the dual sensors in the outdoor unit might require some of the open source code AirGradient maintains. I haven't tested that model with my Home Assistant setup.
They recently had a blog post about Linear Regression and their outdoor models humidity readings. I'm going to be looking at integrating that with my outdoor ESPHome config
that ikea stuff only measures non important crap like PM2,5, not co2
If you want something more simple than HA for getting dashboarding for these devices. You can use docker to quickly spin up a prometheus collector and grafana. You can use templates already available for grafana to get basically the airgradient dashboard and have a configurable setup. I really like my air gradient.
Definitely an option if you want something simple! I used to go that route until I set up a Home Assistant Yellow... now I dump pretty much everything from home into HA instead (though I still track networking stuff in my Prometheus/Grafana instance!).
I put a ESP32 D1 Mini with relay board on my Heat Recovery Ventilator (which is just a box that transfers temperature from old stale air to incoming fresh outside air). I have Home Assistant automatically turn on the ventilator using the ESPHome relay when CO2 gets over 900 ppm and it shuts off the HRV ventilator when any one of my three CO2 sensors dip below 600 ppm. I've been running the system for over a year and it works amazingly well.Running the ventilator all the time is a waste of energy so this way, I get on-demand fresh air when it's needed.
That's a great idea! I have been eyeing a Panasonic HRV to install in my house where an old fireplace air intake was (since boarded up), and was lamenting the fact it had no automation built in with my HVAC. I could probably rig something up to turn it on (or raise/lower speeds) when more fresh air is needed.
Yeah, you definitely want Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) systems to help make sure you've got good quality air from the outside and bring that into the space where humans need to be breathing.
When covid started my wife got really scared about viruses lurking in our house, so I bought some Airthings sensors and automatic window shutters that I connected to Home Assistant. The Airthings sensors measure CO2 levels in the house and the shutters provide ventilation when needed. The Home Assistant dashboard shows a big green signal that everything is ok, which makes my wife feel save & happy. And I have a ton of interesting data. win-win. I did not use a ventilation system as that needs maintenance, and buying, installing and operating such a system would probably cost me more than the heat I lose when the shutters are open for a while.
I've had one running in my office since not long after your first video on the topic. It's amazing to watch the CO2 levels, and I ordered a few additional PCBs to build more.
I bought one of these a few months back, and I really like it. I’m mulling over getting one of these new ones now
Dude, your dad is awesome.
It's cool doing this with your dad.... I miss mine :/
I looked into air quality measuring today and ordered some parts from AliExpress. And now I found this video. Immediately ordered a One DIY Kit. Thanks!
Just recently started using a portable QAI on my desk, very insightful. Especially the co2 levels when the room is closed up for long periods of time.
Your video on air gradient a couple years back motivated me to learn soldering. Now that original air gradient is monitoring my garage air and the garage door status, and lets me open/close the garage door from home assistant.
Very cool! Soldering (and desoldering) is an extremely helpful skill for tinkering, building, and repairing electronics. I'm so glad my Dad taught me the basics when I was a kid!
The part your dad was complaining about is a D1 mini, which I'm pretty sure AirGradient purchased rather then built.
This is true! Though they might be able to make the board indicate the direction a little better through the silkscreen at least... or maybe a future revision could solder the thing directly to the board!
Achim from AirGradient here. Our latest version of the monitor and kit now have an ESP32-C3 microcontroller directly on the main board. So we don't use the D1 mini anymore.
Where I've been lucky enough to specify control room architecture (for engine test / development facilities) I've always specified 6 to 8 changes of air per hour for the control room with test cells running a slight depression. This keeps the air fresh (and the Engineers awake) and prevents any engine exhaust or blow by leaks from getting into the control room. I leave the design to people who know how to get that level of air exchange without making the control room draughty.
The IKEA PM air monitor can be hacked with an ESP8266/32 + ESPHome to connect to HA.
I am using the tuya air monitor which have relays on the units so I can directly trigger equipment to counter abnormal levels in humidity, temperature, co2, pm2.5, pm5, or tvoc. It also has cloud api integration for various services, and has at least several months of 5 minute logs of all of the monitored sensors available from their app.
The thing is how accurate those are. I doubt they have proper calibration either.
@@barygol True, but it is also relative. I don't need to know the absolute numbers, I just know that if it is above 800 3 hours before bedtime, I should ventilate the house a bit if I want to wake up rested the next day.
@@barygol Maybe, but it is for home use. I know that if the co2 on my unit is above 700ppm when I go to bed I won't wake up feeling rested. So if I see it is 900 2 hours before bed time, I can increase ventilation so that I will have a good day tomorrow. I did test the ndir and tvoc sensors to verify that they are different and not a combined sensor by using rubbing alcohol and a can of soda. My unit claims to have dual ndir for improved accuracy. When I initially got the sensor my air was 1700 - 2600 ppm. Being able to control the ventilation to reach an ideal level without being excessive and spending too much on heat and cooling has been life changing.
@@mikegrok what type of ventilation do you use? Mechanical?
@@barygol For now, 3.5 ton AC/heat plus 2 slightly open windows. Small ERV coming when I have time.
In Europe I quite like the Aranet 4. At the time I bought it, it was one of the few options with a decent sensor for CO2. As I recall that was a fairly significant chunk of the cost of the device.
Their other stuff is mainly aimed at industrial applications, but I believe there is an integration for home assistant now over Bluetooth LE.
I'm in Spain. ¿Is the Arabet 4 accurate and well calibrated?
I also own a Aranet4, had a huge impact on my life, reduced my headaches by 80%, better sleep, less tiredness over the day. Closed windows and doors in a room will increase the amount of CO2 in no time, wasn't aware how fast the air would be used...insane device!
I notice these devices don't cover Carbon Monoxide. They do Carbon Dioxide (CO2), but not plain CO. But CO is odorless, tasteless, and commonly created by lighting fires or using natural gas powered systems, and can be quite deadly.
Now, you don't want to get into the fire alarm/CO alarm category, because as you've said they have a lot more regulations you have to get through. But a Carbon Monoxide data logger could be very useful, when combined with the appropriate types of alarm devices.
True; though in my own house I have CO monitors by the washer/dryer (it's electric, but there's a vent from the outside there, near where our HVAC outlet is), and another near the HVAC and water heater.
I have wondered about getting that data into my Home Assistant instance, right now they're just 'dumb' monitors that blare if the level's too high.
@GeerlingEngineering not all of them "just blare " The ones I buy for $50 have a digital readout that is constantly on.
This was a really great video, from the soft skills to the technical talk. Really appreciate it and can’t wait to watch your other vids!
I've always had issues with CO (carbon monoxide) detectors, if they can come out with a model that can detect that I would happily purchase a few.
I’ve had a DIY version of something similar using a Pimoroni Enviro+ for a few years. However, as your dad says it’s the software that works the magic and the software running the Pi version leaves a lot to be desired. Placed an order for one of these to try out. Thanks for the coupon!
I only have a modified IKEA Vindriktning with an esp32 in it. I see AirGradient is not impressed by it (only pm2.5), and I think I agree. You get what you pay for, I guess.
Probably getting one of these when I move in November
Even just PM2.5 can be useful though! I found out there were a few things we would cook that would produce an inordinate amount of particulate matter. Even though there wasn't much visible smoke, we decided to run the exhaust fan in the kitchen and that cuts down on it a lot.
@@GeerlingEngineering The things we do to make delicious bacon :P
I get much higher readings from the Ikea sensor sitting right next to my Airgradient, both running ESPHome so I don't trust the Ikea one as an overall accurate device
Am i missing something?, can't see the link to your esphome setup.
I've always thought it odd we go outside for fresh air, but when we pull that same air into our homes/ cars we filter it!
Oh shoot, sorry about that! Adding the link now...
Commercial HVAC systems can have CO2 sensors for determining circulation. “Whole Home Ventilation” is also becoming common that brings some outside air in while running the fan at a lower speed at an interval.
Just ordered an Outdoor, and even being heavily import taxed here in Denmark 🇩🇰 I can’t wait to receive it and see what the particle count does when my neighbor tries to burn wet wood in their wood burning stove 🤔🙄
Also… forgot to add the discount code, contacted customer support and got instant friendly reply 👍👍👍🙏
This is super neat, I'm thinking I might buy this and fix up my old air exchanger I have in the basement. It should be feasible to automate the air exchanger turning on with a smart plug with the data from this sensor in Home Assistant.
Had the Outdoor up and running for a couple of weeks now. It's just a nice piece of kit, assembling is a 5 minute job, setting it up another 5 minutes...
And it's quite interesting ( scary 🤔 ) to watch how the PM2.5 values rise when the neighbors wood burning stoves gets fired up around the house ♨
Temperature measurements are way of in cold temperatures, but I got a great response from Airgradient, and they are working on a fix.
Just ordered an Airgradient One for indoor use - thanks for making me spend money Jeff 😁
We are currently developing an algorithm for colder temperatures and testing it right now and it looks like it going to improve the accuracy tremendously.
I've definitely been keeping an eye on the solutions available, and had heard of AirGradient before. Also looking at environment monitoring in general for both indoor and outdoor. Always tied to how well it works with Home Assistant. We have ane electronic air filter on our fan system, so I'd really like to see how well it does cleaning our air in the house. One thing we don't have yet is a fresh air intake, but we got a quote to add one from the HVAC company we work with. Right now the biggest hurdle for us is cost. AirGradient's options are definitely something on my list now.
Yeah, I don't have fresh air exchange at my house either, we just rely on the leaky windows... :O
If/when we replace the windows, I'll probably bundle up adding an air exchanger too.
I've built two of the originals, and have been running them on home assistant, as well. Still haven't got round to designing a printable case for them. Maybe one day. For now, they won't, except when they crash, but it's quick to reboot them.
There is a printable case on their site for all of the models if you don't want to design your own. It's what got me into 3D printing
Shop seems to be down as far as I can tell but I'm very excited about this, I had been planning to build my own but this is much better than I what I probably would have built.
This isi such an important conversation as the correlation between CO2 concentration and COVID-19 is really similar. If CO2 is high, the risk fo COVID-19 is high. Thanks for this.
Thank you for this - I just ordered a kit.
I'm pretty sure I know what it's going to tell me, but I don't have a lot of options to change things. I'm in an apartment with only south facing windows, and no real vent to the outside (bathroom vent). But, at least I'll know for sure!
At 7:42 your dad mentions measuring Radon, I can't find if that is also possible on the AirGradient device or if that was only on the AirThings?
Right now only on AirThings, not AirGradient. I've actually asked in the AirGradient forums, and it sounds like it could be a possibility someday!
We need a one monitor device with multiple sensors, each can be placed in different rooms or levels.
They are expensive to buy one for every room or level.
I was feeling so tired and sleepy most of my time home and I was wondering if the oxygen level is low due to lack of air flow.
I'd love to be able to use this with NodeRed. Not seeing any support for that at the moment. Would be awesome if the firmware supported MQTT. Guess I have some learning to do.
Ordered an airgradient off the back of this video and it arrived last week. Works flawlessly and can highly recommend. Just need to get it flashed and integrated into home assistant now!
Great! And I think someone even maintains some ESPHome settings that preserve the upload to AirGradient dashboard functionality. Need to test that.
I am in an apartment building with trees around the building with a lot of surface roots. When it rains the ground remains moist and wet for several days afterward. This results in mould and mildew forming in the soil. As the area dries the wind generated around the building raises the mold and mildew spores into the air and into the building through the pressure intake. The results are regular allergy issues. Each apartment is about 400 sq ft. It was built in 1974. Originally the apartments had transoms over the doors to allow fresh air circulation from the hallways where the building intakes dump it. But those were eliminated when drug addicts and others discovered they could be used to gain entry to the apartments. I found my Honeywell air filter which is near HEPA catches items like cat litter dust, cat dander and stray fur but it is not clear how effective it is against mold and mildew. The Air gradient would allow me to determine other contributing factors such as fine particulates.
Just Ordered the kit! using your code! $153 or so after coupon and after shipping and tax... Thanks for the vid! and your integration stuff! TOO COOL!
I live in Belgium. Since the pandemic, ALL new residential buildings have a CO2 controlled D ventilation system. These buildings are called "BEN woning", in which the energy consumption is amazingly low. Unfortunately, the indoor tobacco smoke (very common in Europe) of the neighbors turn these buildings into boxes of permanent inhalation of nicotine and formaldehyde. I haven't find a sensitive sensor to measure the air quality in my apartment. There are some nights in which the tobacco smoke is so intense that I bleed through my nose and throat but the meter still scoring the air quality as excellent! I'd like to try your product.
You sold me, this is a fantastic solution for air quality monitoring.
Couldn't find any source. So should this be considered open?
love your channel and your dad is awesome. (I'm a former syndicated radio host and ham operator, but would probably love this anyway.)
I have been running an AG Pro v4.2 since your last video on AQM. Now I have two running custom MQTT based firmware to integrate with home assistant in a more customizable manner. Also had a LOT of issues getting ESPHome to work properly on my C3s that I replaced the 8266s with.
Probably a me issue more than anything but I said to hell with it and wrote my own code.
I am excited to get my hands on the new v9 boards but I feel like the removal of the pin headers for the ESP32 chip is a step backwards. Maybe the Pro version could have headers but the prebuilt has the soldered chip?
Any chance you have a repo? I'd be interested in an MQTT version.
You can share that feedback with them about no headers. I have the same concerns and shared them, but the more feedback the better
@@turbo2ltr well, yes, but no. Currently, the code is a heap of shit that only barely works and still has a memory leak for some reason so the damn thing reboots every hour or so. Once I have that sorted out there will be a pr on my github. TheMrDec.
If even Daddy Geerling can't get his hands on a Pi, the rest of us are out in the cold, like Forever.
This is awesome! Thanks AirGradient!
Since I've been monitoring my indoor air quality at home, one surprise has been how much and how fast cooking degrades the air quality. Even when sometimes the change is enjoyable - baking bread or apple pie may introduce VOCs, but it's hard to argue it is unpleasant!
Buy an induction hob and stop burning gas to cook.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 I'm all electric.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 Might be talking about all the food they've burnt.
Picked up an Aranet4 earlier this year. I was surprised to see just how high the CO2 levels in my bedroom got to overnight.
I think I might need to get into this sensor and HA over Christmas.
4:11 "I will bless every place in which an image of my Heart is exposed and honored."
I worked 10 years for a company they I loved. We evolved along the years and moved to a building in a very good place. I got close friend with the owners with time. The new building central AC was horrible, some places were cold and the desk besides it was hot, we bought small thermometers/hygrometers to show how bad it was. The owners tried to fix it several times to no avail. Once one asked me if tone of the attempts had changed it I said: "Look at the tables" almost every table had medicine: nasal sprays, nasal drops, books of paper tissue, etc.
With time they discovered the story of the building (it was a new building very good, with very good structure and fire proofing.
I was elected the safety inspector by the workers (this is mandatory in Brazil) because I had TOC and was annoying about details and had good transit with the owners.
But...with time the story was made clear. There was an error in building it that differed from the plans. This made impossible to bring and install the central AC originally projected. It was a central AC but it wasn't: there was one unit per floor. So a smaller that could be disassembled one was installed. This was the start of the problems.
At that time those small cheap Chinese air quality devices weren't available. I have three now that I use at home and they are mostly OK with few problems an they are not connected to the cloud.
One day the company was sold to another one that was bought by a very well known fund.
I left the company and took a sabbatical: in one month my respiratory health went so so better that I could not believe.
At another one that I worked before that one It was on a center with several short buildings in a beautiful place in the end of the world.
There was a huge, I mean HUGE central separated from the building for the central AC for all and to produce compressed air to the pneumatic mail (yes it had one just like the movie Brazil, very cool). They turned it off at 20:00 I rarely worked late because that place was literally at the end of the world. But we had a project that was not going well and I did it for a while. At 20:00 when they turned off we realized one thing :THE NOISE IT PRODUCED WAS *HUGE* you get used to it with time and don't even notice.
CAT phones have and air sensor attached but it only tests TVOC.
I have 3 Aranet4 home sensors, and already see a noticeable difference in when I air out my home, having a visible indicator is much better than to guess or do it at random
I am more inclined to air out my home instead of keeping my windows shut, to keep in the heat/keep out the heat
Do they use an actual CO₂ sensor (which is worth dozens of $$) or do they derive it from VOCs?
Actual sensor-They use SenseAir S8
@@JeffGeerling Great, it's a nondispersive infrared sensor!
BTW, Airthings can also be connected to Home Assistant via Bluetooth BLE. I have one Airwave plus connected like this, and apart from disconnecting and reconnecting and producing a little spotty lines in the graphs it's just great. No PM-measerument though.
@GeerlingEngineering datavac spotted at timestamp 7:05! Would you recommend those? and would you ever think of doing a quick review on one?
Personally I have a cheaper version that seems to perform as well, though with a plastic casing instead of metal. My Dad's been loving the DataVac for his work jobs, especially when he has a large piece of equipment and a lot to clear out!
Thanks Jeff!@@JeffGeerling
You can connect the airthings in HA and with a bluetooth connection and get the data localy stored
Can it be sent to my phone via Bluetooth just by turning on phone Bluetooth and clicking on the signal...like my car?
We had problems at a small office building. Many employees having URI issues and one would lose her voice after 30 minutes. They moved her to another building. The problems were exacerbated after there was water damage to one ninety foot outside wall. The entire wall was abated, but tests indicated high levels of mold in all four zones. Unfortunately, there were no specific levels for mold (thirty years ago). After I retired, my URI issues ceased.
Really like this Air Quality stuff. Thanks Jeff & Joe.
Great vid, just picked one of these up myself!
The Undecided with Matt Farrell channel is providing updates about his Net-Zero Home build, and air quality is something he's talked about a great deal. If particular interest would be the Energy Recovery Ventilator system.
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is real. I worked at a place that had it. It was an old coffee warehouse built (I think) in the 20's and was a brick fortress that could withstand a nuclear attack. In the 80's it was renovated into an office (prime location in Chicago's Downtown) and sealed up completely. Saving energy was the thing then. I started having sinus problems soon after I started working there. But was it me? Soon before I left the company, they sent around a survey with a lot of questions directed toward such related health issues. I don't know the results, if "they" told anybody or if any corrective action was taken. The company itself folded a few years later, which was a good thing, actually, and the space was divided up to different businesses.
Could a version of these replace existing stand alone fire alarm / smoke detectors?
A drop in replacement of a dumb sensor with one providing data would be great.
And I like the five year battery because mine are always chirping for new batteries.
Good question, but no-these are not a substitute for fire/smoke detection :(
It would be nice if they could make a model that does it all, but right now that's not their main focus. Smoke detectors have a lot of other regulations to go through.
Your dad is an excellent speaker
Interesting widget. I've been thinking about going the air quality route.
The university of vienna has also implemented air quality monitoring within lecture halls and the such, so that the people know when to open some windows.
Haha. Geerlings old man gives the classic American response. “Mandatory? Well, that’d be communism… *shuffles feet*”
This is a great video and relevant to those of us in urban and suburban environments.
You can get a very precise infrared co2 sensor part for around 10$ and wire it to a wemos d1 mini which is 2$ to make a 12$ co2 sensor that works completely locally.
Which one did you go with? I've tried different eCO2 sensors that are wildly inaccurate but the SenseAir S8 has been much more consistent
Shout out to brother Joel haha
Hello up there in cold-land!
Does this thing work without a subscription? An app?
Is the device audible? At least the pm sensor has a fan, so it will create some noise. I haven't been able to find any info on the noise level though.
Good question! In the radio station the ambient noise level is around 35 dB and it is impossible to hear the sound of the tiny fan.
In my house, upstairs I've never noticed it, but in my office that I have sound treatment in, and the noise floor is about 32 dBa, if there's no other sound present, I can hear a very faint whirring.
It's not bad at all, as the fan is run at low rpm.
@@GeerlingEngineering thanks. I ordered 3 and hopefully will agree with your assessment.
At work were trying to find a pm 2.5 micron sensor that will survive an industrial enviroment without dieing every month. We use the data to control out dust collection equipment. So far we either can get very expensive sensors which cannot size the dust, or sensors that size the dust but die every month. And the sensor company says we can't calibrate or clean the sensor without disrupting the laser sensor. So we have to throw it out and start over. We just can't find a sensor (yet) that seems to work.
All the good small sensors have a small bit of active airflow, making them hard for heavy dust environments :(
When they make one that will also measure N02, S02 and ozone I'll buy one.
I've always had a fan running pretty much 24/7. If I'm in a room the fan is on. Still air has always felt weird to me. I don't know if this makes me weird or anyone else has this issue.
I got my AC always on because without it, I feel like the room smells and it gets too humid in here.
Fans are quite useful, and you're definitely not weird. I know of many people who leave at least a ceiling fan (if not the HVAC fan) on 24x7.
@@GeerlingEngineering I definitely look odd outside living in a block of flats and having a condenser unit (portable split AC) with the pipe coming out through the window. I'm on a ground floor and whilst it's easy to install/remove the unit, it requires a lot of taping to seal the gaps otherwise it's a bit ineffective.
Just ordered an air purifier because I got a 3D printer (Bambu X1C) and I want to make sure the air is ok especially when using non PLA plastics.
I’ve had a few fellow employees over the years that could tell when the fans weren’t cycling much. They always called the air ‘stale’.
To me, humidity matters the most. If I can get humidity in the 35-43% range, I don't have the need for fans. I always travel with a small 18650-powered fan. It makes a world of difference when I'm away from home.
I bet your dad would argue against having fire alarms required by law.
Are there a similar solution for monitoring radon also?
I wish, but no... at my house I have an AirThings Wave, which does require a cloud account, but I can get it's data through to Home Assistant still using Bluetooth.
@@GeerlingEngineeringThanks for the answer. Let's hope AirGradient or someone else comes out with a open source radon meter soon :)
Great video. I don't know much and can't really do anything now, but after I bought my home, I found a builder, Matt Risinger who posts videos about building science and why you want a net zero home or close to it and how to avoid some air issues. For residential, he recommends an ERV hvac system, among other things. His videos are good, and I learn a lot.
It would be nice to get some info on how to use the Prometheus Airgradient custom firmware to integrate with self-hosted monitoring (grafana).
I have a link in the description for ESPHome config, but the Prometheus config is in the same repository: github.com/geerlingguy/airgradient-prometheus
@@GeerlingEngineering I know but the docs in there are a bit sparse. I just received two AirGradient One Pro v9 and I can't flash.
Really interesting video and topic. Would you (or anyone) have recommendations for trustworthy youtubers who have reviews of standalone air purifiers?
Yes, in fact! Matthias Wandel has done some very good quantitative reviews of devices like air purifiers, space heaters, etc. I wonder if Project Farm has too-he would be another good source.
@@GeerlingEngineering Thank you! They, and of course you, are at the top of my list of must watch content providers. Matthias has made a few things over the years (I'm sure with box joints!) but I don't have that luxury. I may make the suggestion to Project Farm.
I’m from the STL area and your dad looks really familiar is there anyway I would recognize him? Like is he well known?
M5 stack DIY is a cheaper almost plug and play solution. Not tried to esphome these. My wife bought standalone air quality monitors for our office rooms.
I like the device but buy have situation where I need onboard storage (maybe even SD card). Is it an available option ?
Jeff you could you do a new video on the latest version on how to set up the software ? Thanks
I wish there was a ethernet+POE version, as for large-scale corporate deployments that would be a much more efficent way of getting data and power to them.
A few people have mentioned this-they are often willing to incorporate suggestions into new versions, and possibly just add pads on the board for a custom solution... I would suggest asking about this option on their forum: forum.airgradient.com
I'll try that! I'm still going to pick one up to play with at my desk though - we have a very basic CO2 monitor already and it's been eye-opening seeing how much the level changes if we forget to open the windows... @@GeerlingEngineering
Is outdoor new version also in the works with release "soon"?
Ok enough sales pitch, show the metrics available to oss and what timeseries and dashboard you get in HA. Does it do temp, humidity, voc, co2, co, radon, any fire detection? …
It does Temp, Humidity, PM2.5 (and a few others), CO2, TVOC Index and NOx Index depending on what model you buy.
Dashboard and time series depends on what you configure in HomeAssistsnt
Lower CO2 by adding house plants that are good at capturing CO2 such as bird's nest fern of snake plant. Also, in the talk room it would be ironic to use, if the room is regularly at 75F and 75% RH, dumb cane. Dumb cane absorbed 23.9% of the CO2 in 2 m^3 of air in less than 8 hours in one Malaysian study.
Plants don't actually absorb that much co2, otherwise they would gain multiple hundreds of grams worth of carbon alone a day.
The only way for it to work would be to be lucky enough to have the room for walls of plants, or some kind of algae/mushroom-based air recycler
I would imagine that making them mandatory by regulation would reduce the risk of lawsuits.
That, besides way too many business, and especially most real estate owners don't give a 💩 about occupant health. You're not going to convince them with a great dashboard.
I built my own sensor stack for indoor ait quality base don an ESP32 with many sensotrs and data in home assistant.
I have them in each room.
Each sensor is a BME680, measureing Barro Preasure, temp, humidity, CO2, Gas Resistance (ppm), IAQ calibration, A LUX sensor for measuring the ammount of light, and a SGP30 sensor for TVOC and Co2 per breath equivelent, mmWave Dopler Radar sensor to get any and all movements in the room, MIC/Speaker for new home assistant wake word system to control HA wqithout Google or Alexa and keep all my data and machine learning on my server.
The sensor boxes, I also equip with a C11001 RF Transciever to control my remote control fans and stuff. This way when no ones in the room, fans and lights get turned off automattic. And then I have a full heatmap of sensor data from each room overlaying a floor plan and you can see where bad air is and good air is...
Nice! That's very similar to the concept of this hardware (it's just packaged more nicely with a pleasant enclosure you don't have to print/make yourself). That's how I was doing temp/humidity/pressure monitoring before, and it works great!
@@GeerlingEngineering that looks like it gives you spots on the board where you can solder on more sensors and just add the esphome code to read them. That's a cool idea. And makes it where you can buy off the shelf diy sensors on a 2.54mm pitch and just solder them straight in. Love the idea of that system.
I built my own PCBs and 3D printed case. So that I can be modular. So a place where I only want to monitor temps, but don't need the c11001 tranciever. It's a pin systems that stacks. So each module is a mezzanine board for the previous. And the bottom has all pins mapped and each module uses dedicated pins in the stack and a 5v and 3v3 and the pins going up. So I can add my modules in any order and they all work perfectly. Wanted to make it so each room will have the exact sensor I need, but not have to pay for a bunch of one off PCB prints. This way I order 10 of each board and so I build what I need for each room
That's awesome! Do you have a build log/guide or GitHub where we could check it your work? It sounds almost exactly what I want to do in my new house.
@@MikeHarris1984 Yep! I believe they used to sell just the bare PCB too, not sure if they do that anymore, or just the kits. But I believe they are able to deliver the PCB design as well.
I think this is a great idea. We're increasing the energy requirements of new construction but no one is talking about actual air quality.
Some people are, but it usually seems to play catch-up, since it's not an immediate cost/benefit item (e.g. it takes a while for people's health issues to be quantified on spreadsheets).
Yup, there are air quality requirements all over Europe and in some other countries too.
And they are not hard to enforce.
You just have to do it.
You're just not paying attention. ERVs are a finally a big thing now here in the States and air exchange requirements have been strengthened in building codes everywhere.
@@grafja They are in new construction, but the majority of homes and buildings have a lot less air cycling than they should.
COVID really accelerated adoption, though, especially for retrofits!
If you want to link this to your cellphone via wifi...do you have to pay a subscription? Who gets the information when you open the app? Thanks...I am almost ready to buy.
Some manufacturer really needs to figure out a way to make these affordable. 100 bucks is an absurd price for anyone who isn't either rich or very deep into home automation, it's well above what any sane consumer would be interested in paying. When these go down to around 20-30 bucks is when they become interesting.
I think that price point would make it go from an "I'm interested in this" to "putting one all over the place like smoke detectors", but the problem is the individual sensors all cost a bit (like that CO2 sensor is $40-50 on its own!).
It will take time for all the components can become less expensive, for now $100 is probably the bare minimum you'll find a kit with everything bundled together.
AirGradient is not taking a large profit on these kits.
@@GeerlingEngineering Exactly, that really is the problem; the current price point really only makes it justifiable if you have the disposable income (or get sponsored 😄) and want the data *now*. I looked into a DIY solution but the components themselves are already more expensive than is really worth it.
So let's hope some manufacturer cracks the code and makes the components themselves cheaper, and then these plug & play solutions should also drop in price pretty quickly.
@@daylen577 There are cheaper sensor modules available but then the accuracy really lacks. With our kits and monitors we try to avoid these very cheap sensors but go for the ones which gives you a good accuracy for home use and also a long lifetime.
The new version looks very nice. However, I'll probably try to order the older version which you featured ~2 years ago - considerably cheaper & parts are freely available are Aliexpress, etc.
How noisy are these things? Could you have it running on your bedside table at night?
They are pretty quiet-if I'm within a foot of mine, I can just make out the little fan that goes sometimes in the PM2.5 sensor. But it's not much, just a bit of a whisper.