Smart Air Quality/Pollution Sensors
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2022
- Air polution is known to cause cancer and other health problems. Can smart home air quality sensors detect this and improve your health? Are they worth buying?
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As an air quality and public health researcher, I gave a thumbs-up to your excellent video and enquiring mind! As you found out, most of the low-cost sensor-based consumer-grade AQ monitors lack of proper calibrations. These sensors are technically nephelometers counting the number of fine particles using a beam of laser. Then they convert the number counts to mass concentrations using empirical equations. For them to measure accurately, the manufacturer should 1) calibrate them in the lab to ensure measurements from two units of the same type of monitor are comparable; 2) perform on-site calibration to take into account the physico-chemical properties of the particles present in your home environment. However, the second step is usually difficult, and your collocation experiment showed that they might have skipped the first step, too - a consistent 5-fold difference between the 2 PM2.5 monitors can't be acceptable variability.😉 Therefore, we consider these monitors *indicative* instruments only useful for showing the direction of change, as you mentioned in your video, and won't compare their measurements to health guideline values for intervention.
I like your warning lights for poor AQ, though!👍
Good to know! Thanks for the comment!
Could you please recommend a hand held air tester that I use to check the air quality both inside and outside the home. Ive seen so many reviews on them and am having trouble believing any of them really work well.
I suspect my IKEA Vindriktning and Vindstyrka have actually at least gone through some very basic calibration, I have three of them, currently places side by side, and they actually track each other pretty well, and report the same pm2.5 levels. That said, I still see them as mostly indicative of air quality as I have no good way of calibrating them. Heck, I don't even have a good way of calibrating a thermometer.
@@rasmuswi - pure water ice and pure water boiling -> 0C and 100C
@@Airbag888 that assumes that your temperature sensor can handle immersion, which I'm not sure if all sensors can. Also, boiling water at normal atmospheric pressure is more like 98C, though that's easy to adjust for if you have a barometer,
Excellent Scientific test Setup!
Thanks for comparing two devices! Unfortunately it confirms my worry (and experience) that these devices are very poorly calibrated, even for the simple stuff
Most of them arent calibrated or calibrate at all, they use diferent sensors to average stuff and guess.
I need one that detects vape to turn on my inline fan in attic. Loving these open source series especially the camera ones. Any prime Day Cameras that are good for a budget ptz not PoE cam?
Just saw an article today taking about (carcinogenic) formaldehyde leaking from furniture. I wonder if the HCHO sensors on the market are sensitive enough to detect hazardous levels?
This man is dedicated 💨
Thanks Alan, I've been looking into this, but hadn't decided on a sensor. I did some research and found the same as you. Those Tuya sensors don't seem the best. Nice science work! I am thinking of modding the Ikea sensor and adding an ESP32 on it.
I've done this recently. An ESP-01 comfortably fits into the casing (don't forget to add a linear voltage regulator) and it has been working reliably for the last 2 months or so.
Kudos to IKEA for making their products this easy to adapt.
I'll have to look into the IKEA sensor. Thanks for the heads up!
@@HomeAutomationGuy Just search for this video from Vaclav Chalopuka: "IKEA AIR quality sensor Home Assistant upgrade"
There are aftermarket boards available for the IKEA sensors...👍😁
@@MrSupersidewinder I considered those, but I don't think they ship to Australia.
I am testing the SGP40 voc sensor, on paper is one of the best you can buy but it outputs just an "index" of the voc concentration, good enough only to detect if air quality is getting worse when index is above 100 and it gets better with values below 100. There is no measured value.
I have a central ventilation unit with 3 speeds controlled by humidity in the bathroom and kitchen... Want to do the same thing with co2 measurement but still looking for a decent sensor. Doesn't have to be totally accurate but I don't want a guessing sensor. Seen ndir Zigbee sensors but still a little hesitant to buy. Should look up some reviews.
Thanks for the video and honesty. How about going the DIY way? building an MQ DIY sensor + ESPhome ? are they more accurate?
I'm wondering that too! I was hoping one of my smart viewers would be able to comment on that!
@@HomeAutomationGuy I built one with MQ2 Gas sensor. so far it works well but i have not tried other MQ sensors. they are a lot.
MQ-2 - Methane, Butane, LPG, smoke
MQ-3 - Alcohol, Ethanol, smoke
MQ-4 - Methane, CNG Gas
MQ-5 - Natural gas, LPG
MQ-6 - LPG, butane gas
MQ-7 - Carbon Monoxide
MQ-8 - Hydrogen Gas
MQ-9 - Carbon Monoxide, flammable gasses
MQ131 - Ozone
MQ135 - Air Quality (CO, Ammonia, Benzene, Alcohol, smoke)
MQ136 - Hydrogen Sulfide gas
MQ137 - Ammonia
MQ138 - Benzene, Toluene, Alcohol, Acetone, Propane, Formaldehyde gas, Hydrogen
MQ214 - Methane, Natural gas
A Lot!!!
Another great video!
Thank you!
You look like the type of guy that seems normal at the beginning and then farts into the air quality monitor on youtube. I received this compliment myself once.
It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance!
When I want to test I typically light a candle and then extinguish it, and let the little white smoke puff reach the sensor.
helpful thanks!
Which app do ypu use in the video?
Thanks.
I wonder if it detects when there's a need to shower?
I know this is a old thread by now. But, can you help me by answering a problem. I have people vaporizing chemicals (bleach turned to chlorine gas) house hold cleaners and creosote made into a smoke screen. Do you know of something that can pick up on these? Something I can use legally. Not asking for legal advice obviously, but something to provide proof. I now have pulmonary hypertension brung on by scaring by these chemicals. Pointing me in the right direction would help.
I have no idea sorry - I don't really know what those things are. But all the best finding a solution!
I used awair for years but loathe the company since dropping support for their older still very functional sensors. Now I use a Modified Ikea pm2 sensor with a esp32 and scd41 sensor inside. Running Tasmota or ESPHome. Very close readings to the calibrated awair sensors
Are there any that sense 2nd hand cigarette smoke to trigger fan?
I am not sure, perhaps one of these would detect that?
Thanks, Alan, for this nice Video. But as an educated Chemical Laboratory Assistant I would never trust such a cheap sensor. As you said, that can be used to alert on a bad trending. setting some thresholds to trigger a warning is ok but never take the values for facts. Professional monitoring sensors costs multiples. I would estimate low 4 digit numbers.
BTW: professional sensors are not able to monitor so many different measurements at once.
Thanks for the input! I certainly am not going to trust it as a laboratory grade device!
Hi. I have one of that, it seems to work, but I have doubts about the values to use. What values are you using? I couldn't find an accurate chart of values that could work for a healthy air quality. Could anyone help? Thanks. Miguel
The various government environmental agencies around the world publish recommendations for indoor air quality, especially for use in offices. I've been using a combination of those and the baselines I see in my house.
How do you access that dashboard
Honestly I might just bash together my own using an ESP32... I'm sure there's got to be a decent quality sensor to be had.
Let me know if you find one. They were super expensive last time I looked, and didn't support all the readings I'd like
A whole-house air purifier is the best way to go. I had bushfires near my house and the air outside was inpenitrably thick. But inside the air was pristine for the entire home. Best bang for buck there is. I also keep an Atmotube Pro in the house so I can see that the air is clean.
Thanks for the info!
I recommend to watch a video from "Vaclav Chaloupka". He used IKEA Vindriktning air sensor but he purchased 3rd party board which allows him to use it with ESPHome.
Brilliant! Thanks for the recommendation!
@@HomeAutomationGuy I was just about to recommend the same thing! I just installed the dedicated CO2 sensor into my Ikea Vindriktning, and spent a few hours configuring ESPHome so the lights on the Vindriktning will turn blue (as I will if there's too much co2 in the air) when co2 levels are high. That Laskakit board replaces the stock LEDs with a Neopixelbus so you can do all sorts of colorful things if you want to. 🙂
@@HomeAutomationGuy also, the slightly more expensive Ikea Vindstyrka (Vindstyrka means wind strength in Swedish, but in English you'd rather call that wind speed, and Vindriktning means wind direction) is also a pretty nice device, with a nice display, and as opposed to the Vindriktning it actually has Zigbee. I have one of those too.
The fart sold me!
🍑💨
Does tuya still required a cloud account? Because that's a no go for me. What are good alternative air quality sensors?
Tuya wifi devices do need the cloud. Tuya Zigbee devices don't. So basicly: Wifi=yes, zigbee=no.
@@BartCockheyt no, that's incorrect. I've bought ZigBee tuya wall plugs last year and still needed to create an account to get some tokens to be able to get them working with Home Assistant. Yes, there is no cloud communication, but still cloud registration. And I don't want them to have anything from me, not even my email.
Interesting. I've never had to do that for any Tuya Zigbee product. Did you pair them directly with Home Assistant using ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT? Or are you using a Tuya hub of some sort?
@@HomeAutomationGuy no I didn't have a tuya hub. I bought the wallplugs and wanted to use the integration in HA. But the integration wanted a key that could only be obtained after cloud registration of the products.
@@87vortex87 So you probably have the WiFi plugs, not the Zigbee plugs.
Lol, that was an amazing test to the sensor, i hoped you wiped it
Any experiences pairing this with homebridge via mqtt?
I'm afraid I've got no experience with homebridge.
@@HomeAutomationGuy thanks anyway
The MHZ19 is a great DIY CO2 option
Thanks for sharing!
IKEA PM2.5 sensor with a WeMos D1 Arduino best value into Home Assistant!
I use Xiaomi mi air purifier, I believe its pm2 sensor is quite accurate because it reacts when I do dust cleaning and such, but also being Hepa filter it fixed pm2 problem and not only notifies that you have one
Nice! I've not seen them myself
There used to be one that would do pm2.5/10 and TVOC while also exposing all 3 to HA.. but I cannot find it anywhere
Made in China + WiFi? Will it report back to China?
Take a look at my Networking videos. They show you how to create a separate WiFi network for devices like this so you can prevent them from accessing the internet and reporting back to anyone
"changes introduced in air quality" LMAO 🤣🤣🤣
Immediate subscribe for the fart test
Came here for comments about the hilarious fart.
avoid this cheap bullshit, you cannot pay 25$ for a device with 5 sensors, as one sensor costs min 20$. It is not worth to even buy this device, so what bad advices you give to folks man.
it has some sort of sensor, test what it does good and ignore the other readings