Indoor air quality sensor?

[jlrichar]

Short version: anyone have a suggestion for indoor air quality sensors that work with homeseer?

Living in Southern California with fires four years in a row I think it’s time to...well move. Unfortunately aside from the fires, traffic, cost of living, taxes, and earthquakes, it’s great. I mean my town recently opened its 38th Mexican restaurant. I’m not kidding. We have one Dunkin Donuts, three Starbucks (including one in a supermarket) and 38 Mexican restaurants. Luckily it’s one of my favorite foods. Burritos, streat tacos, sopes, horchata, Rita’s, albondigas soup. The best. Plus where would I move to? Every place has its own problems from floods, snowmageddon, hurricanes, tornadoes, and ska festivals.

Though with the fires every year I think it would probably be a good idea to really start to monitor the indoor air quality. What I’d like to know is what people are using that works well with homeseer?

I currently have Nest Protects. From an automation perspective I could not be more disappointed in them. From a well managed and closed smoke and CO detection system they are probably the best out there-though very far from perfect. It just seems to be a poorly served category. Putting CO on ceiling is not the best place for it, and the smoke sensors are prone to going off randomly if they get even slightly dusty. Their notifications, management, and pathlights are pretty good, and they supplement my nest thermostat presence detection. So I’ll probably keep them. What I would like to do is supplement them with some outdoor weather / indoor air quality system.

Ideally for indoor air quality I’d like a flexible system that I can add sensors I want. I’d like to monitor CO, accurate ppm CO2, PM2.5, Radon (long shot I know, though there are smart sensors out there), VOC or TOC, Possibly NOx. Did I miss anything? CH4? On second thought, better skip that one.

Ideally i’d like something with its own HS3/4 plugin that interfaces to hardware that’s easy to acquire. Alternatively if the hardware can be made to work with rfxcomm, JowiHue, Hubitat, or MQTT, then that might work too as I have all plugins except MQTT already.

Any thoughts, opinions, recommendations are welcome.




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[TankHankerous]

There are several raspberry pi projects that monitor air quality. They could probably be combined with MQTT with a bit of work.

Calibrating them could be a problem though. Not sure how well calibrated those things are, as I've never used any of them.

https://fossbytes.com/enviro-raspber...r-air-quality/

http://airpi.es/

[RoChess]

I'm waiting for https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSEQYY9 to go on sale again for $135, but aside from factory IFTTT support I'll probably want more and might venture into writing a plug-in for it if nothing exists. Didn't look that thoroughly as I'd otherwise annoy myself for not buying device yet.

That only covers Radon though, as the temperature and humidity are covered by many other sensors, including UV, Lux, and Seismographs that most multi-sensors offer.

For PM2.5 air-quality you might be better off investigating weather-stations, or Arduino sensor packs and then rely on many of the existing HS plugins to gather the data from those.

Read more on jon00 PM2.5/PM10 project otherwise @ https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/3r...for-homeseer-3

If you got money to burn, then here's a Z-Wave option -- http://www.mcohome.com/show_list.php?id=15&sid=143 but I've only seen EU frequency models being sold.

[logman]

Short version: anyone have a suggestion for indoor air quality sensors that work with homeseer? .... Any thoughts, opinions, recommendations are welcome.

I use the IQAir Air Visual Pro to monitor indoor and outdoor air quality (Amazon). They have an open API that I use the Big5 plugin to make calls to and return the results to Homeseer. Two separate API calls are necessary to get both indoor and outdoor measurements. The indoor measurements are taken directly from the unit itself (via the cloud) while the outdoor readings are returned from the nearest NWS air quality monitoring station.

I currently have the one unit in my Man Cave, but I do plan to add more to the main house. So far I've been very satisfied with it. We allow guests to smoke in the man cave, so when the IQAir detects cigarette smoke I have an event that turns on the ceiling fans and also turns the HVAC fan on (if it's not already running). The higher the levels of CO2 detected, the faster the ceiling fans turn. Works great. I'm also going to add a ceiling fan exhaust (like used in a bathroom) to help keep the air ventilated and use an event to turn the fan on/off depending on CO2 level.

Here is how my indoor devices look:



And here is how I set up my outdoor devices:



Not sure if this is what you are looking for exactly but at least it will give you some ideas.

--Barry

[Wade]

Living in Southern California with fires four years in a row I think it’s time to...well move. Unfortunately aside from the fires, traffic, cost of living, taxes, and earthquakes, it’s great. I mean my town recently opened its 38th Mexican restaurant. I’m not kidding. We have one Dunkin Donuts, three Starbucks (including one in a supermarket) and 38 Mexican restaurants. Luckily it’s one of my favorite foods. Burritos, streat tacos, sopes, horchata, Rita’s, albondigas soup. The best. Plus where would I move to? Every place has its own problems from floods, snowmageddon, hurricanes, tornadoes, and ska festivals.

Any thoughts, opinions, recommendations are welcome.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

If the air quality sensors don't work out I can recommend San Antonio. It hits all your points...Mexican restaurants in particular...and definitely none of that snow stuff.

[jlrichar]

If the air quality sensors don't work out I can recommend San Antonio. It hits all your points...Mexican restaurants in particular...and definitely none of that snow stuff.

I agree. I’ve visited three times in last two years for business. Food was great. River walk was typical tourist destination-crowded during fri-sun, and pleasant in other days. Great place to get an early morning run in on a hot day. I learned that the crowdedness had a lot todo with the military base actually as recruits get weekends off.

I did find it odd that I did not see one electric car the whole time I was there, considering how ubiquitous they are in SoCal. Also odd is that good BBQ seems to not be near the river walk, though there are some great places within ten miles of it. The Mexican food was just amazing though-and a little different than in SoCal. For example what’s queso?

Great place overall!




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[jlrichar]

I'm waiting for https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSEQYY9 to go on sale again for $135, but aside from factory IFTTT support I'll probably want more and might venture into writing a plug-in for it if nothing exists. Didn't look that thoroughly as I'd otherwise annoy myself for not buying device yet.

That only covers Radon though, as the temperature and humidity are covered by many other sensors, including UV, Lux, and Seismographs that most multi-sensors offer.

For PM2.5 air-quality you might be better off investigating weather-stations, or Arduino sensor packs and then rely on many of the existing HS plugins to gather the data from those.

Read more on jon00 PM2.5/PM10 project otherwise @ https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/3r...for-homeseer-3

If you got money to burn, then here's a Z-Wave option -- http://www.mcohome.com/show_list.php?id=15&sid=143 but I've only seen EU frequency models being sold.

That radon sensor sounds nice. I think I read about a version two on some review site. Kind of expensive, but probably only need one for the house. I’m kinda trying to stay away from too much diy type stuff. Usually jon00 has his projects pretty well packaged though with easy to follow steps.

Thanks!


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[jlrichar]

I use the IQAir Air Visual Pro to monitor indoor and outdoor air quality (Amazon). They have an open API that I use the Big5 plugin to make calls to and return the results to Homeseer. Two separate API calls are necessary to get both indoor and outdoor measurements. The indoor measurements are taken directly from the unit itself (via the cloud) while the outdoor readings are returned from the nearest NWS air quality monitoring station.

I currently have the one unit in my Man Cave, but I do plan to add more to the main house. So far I've been very satisfied with it. We allow guests to smoke in the man cave, so when the IQAir detects cigarette smoke I have an event that turns on the ceiling fans and also turns the HVAC fan on (if it's not already running). The higher the levels of CO2 detected, the faster the ceiling fans turn. Works great. I'm also going to add a ceiling fan exhaust (like used in a bathroom) to help keep the air ventilated and use an event to turn the fan on/off depending on CO2 level.

Here is how my indoor devices look:



And here is how I set up my outdoor devices:



Not sure if this is what you are looking for exactly but at least it will give you some ideas.

--Barry

I saw this one in the review site as well. Looks nice. Glad to see it integrated. I’m looking for something I can put in each bedroom, and in living room. No-one smokes in my house so I might not need the pm2.5 in every room, just the living room. CO/CO2 would be nice in each room for safety, and trigger ventilation. Ideally it is all part of same ecosystem so I just integrate once.

Probably going to need to be at least two ecosystems if I want radon detection though.

Anyone know anything about ecowit?


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[Wade]

I agree. I’ve visited three times in last two years for business. Food was great. River walk was typical tourist destination-crowded during fri-sun, and pleasant in other days. Great place to get an early morning run in on a hot day. I learned that the crowdedness had a lot todo with the military base actually as recruits get weekends off.

I did find it odd that I did not see one electric car the whole time I was there, considering how ubiquitous they are in SoCal. Also odd is that good BBQ seems to not be near the river walk, though there are some great places within ten miles of it. The Mexican food was just amazing though-and a little different than in SoCal. For example what’s queso?

Great place overall!

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Yeah, river walk is great for the tourism economy but less popular with locals. Try the Pearl area and Southtown next time you visit. Elec vehicles are here but far behind CA on uptake. Variety of reasons IMO including lesser govt incentives, regional love of trucks and big SUVs, driving distances between cities, dirt-cheap gas (government disincentive?). 2 PHEVs and an HEV in my driveway.

Queso = TexMex staple. See also puffy tacos.

Back to air quality sensors...

[RenderCAD]

I use the IQAir Air Visual Pro to monitor indoor and outdoor air quality (Amazon). They have an open API that I use the Big5 plugin to make calls to and return the results to Homeseer. Two separate API calls are necessary to get both indoor and outdoor measurements. The indoor measurements are taken directly from the unit itself (via the cloud) while the outdoor readings are returned from the nearest NWS air quality monitoring station.

I currently have the one unit in my Man Cave, but I do plan to add more to the main house. So far I've been very satisfied with it. We allow guests to smoke in the man cave, so when the IQAir detects cigarette smoke I have an event that turns on the ceiling fans and also turns the HVAC fan on (if it's not already running). The higher the levels of CO2 detected, the faster the ceiling fans turn. Works great. I'm also going to add a ceiling fan exhaust (like used in a bathroom) to help keep the air ventilated and use an event to turn the fan on/off depending on CO2 level.

Here is how my indoor devices look:



And here is how I set up my outdoor devices:



Not sure if this is what you are looking for exactly but at least it will give you some ideas.

--Barry

Hello
We would like to adopt the same IQAir Air Visual PRO system for air quality monitoring for customers who have asked us this need, we have an Italian supplier of this product that sells it for € 269. However, we did not understand where to find the API for data exchange with the BIG5 plugin. Should we request this API from the supplier of the IQAir quality product or is it included in the BIG5 plugin?

Massimo-RenderCAD

[logman]

Hello
We would like to adopt the same IQAir Air Visual PRO system for air quality monitoring for customers who have asked us this need, we have an Italian supplier of this product that sells it for € 269. However, we did not understand where to find the API for data exchange with the BIG5 plugin. Should we request this API from the supplier of the IQAir quality product or is it included in the BIG5 plugin?

Massimo-RenderCAD

You will need to create an account at https://www.airvisual.com/ and then register a device using the devices' serial number. You will then be provided with a device key that will allow you to access local device data via the API at https://www.airvisual.com/api/v2/node/xxxx-Your-Key-Here-xxxx. I never did find any documentation for the device API, but if you have worked with APIs before then it is fairly straightforward and easy to figure out.

The outdoor air API is separate and open to the public. Documentation for it is available here: https://api-docs.airvisual.com/?version=latest

--Barry

[RoChess]

I'm still testing the AirThings Wave Plus sensor (US$183.99 from AirThings website with 20% coupon code and free shipping) which does Radon (Short Term), Radon (Long Term), Humidity, Temperature, Pressure, CO2 levels, and TVOC (Total Volatile Organic Compounds).

By default it relies on a smartphone app to connect via Bluetooth to get the information, but they have a GitHub repository showing how to get the details.

This code was forked by somebody to add MQTT support, and I've forked that code myself to add even more support, and update the guide as it contained mistakes.

I'm running it on a $9.99 Raspberry Pi Zero W which I buy from Microcenter running on a 16GB microSD card that Microcenter loves handing out for free when they send out coupons every 4-6 months to get you back into the store. Lucky enough to own a 3D printer, so printed my own case, but otherwise those are $3.99 at Microcenter as well. Official Raspberry Pi power supplies are $7.99, but I'm drowning in $1.79 chargers from AliExpress that support QC3.0 and 2.1A on two additional ports and they power the Pi just fine for me.

The Python script currently still runs manually as I'm doing massive amount of tests before I can rely on it, including chemical based Radon lab-tests to compare values, but AirThings states it can take 30+ days before their sensor is properly calibrated and before the Radon (Long Term) values start to show, and I'm only going into 2nd week.

Talking with their support as the battery level shows on mobile phone app, they plan to open the full REST API soon which will include ability to retrieve the battery level, and I'm trying to reverse engineer it if possible before they do

TimeStamp	Humidity	Radon ST avg	Radon LT avg	Temperature	Pressure	CO2 level	VOC level	Raw2	Raw3
08/05..14:13	61.5 %rH	48 Bq/m3	0 Bq/m3	23.49 degC	986.96 hPa	536.0 ppm	131.0 ppb	90.0 %	0.0 %
08/05..14:28	59.0 %rH	48 Bq/m3	0 Bq/m3	23.32 degC	986.94 hPa	554.0 ppm	89.0 ppb	3.0 %	0.0 %

The Timestamp and Raw2/Raw3 columns are added extra as well by me, where I've already received some added technical explanation on what Raw2/3 values are for so I'm deciding if they are useful. This includes LED light level, orientation of the sensor, and some other technical details, but I love data, so I'll probably expand Python scripts to support them once I verified their results and expand the byte value into two nibbles.

Python is not my strong suit, so I've been committing a lot of bad code, and then quickly committing a fix, but figured that will give me a good laugh in the future when I review the commit history. At least I fixed the Bluetooth connection crash which caused the Python script to abort with an exception and then halt processing future readings. That's unacceptable obviously, so I added code to just skip that reading and try again on the next cycle.

As you can see by the timestamps I've got mine set at 900 seconds. Reason is to conserve battery as much as possible while still getting plenty of data. The Radon and VOC sensors only update their data once an hour, and the other sensors every 5-minutes. Once I'm more positive that polling every 5-minutes isn't going to lead to having to replace batteries every month I might opt for that, but for now once every 15-minutes works.

Once I figured raw2/3 out and possibly reverse engineer battery levels, then I'll incorporate the code updates into the MQTT script, so I can tie it into the mscMQTT broker plugin for HomeSeer and get all these wonderful data points to show up in HomeSeer.

Also got two AirThings Wave Mini ($63.99 via coupon), which do everything except Radon and Pressure. That Wave Plus sensor will be positioned more central in basement away from the active Radon extraction unit in the corner, and the Wave Mini sensors will be split between kitchen/bedroom side of the house and the other near the air purifier. With AC, dehumidifier, air purifier and additional fans controllable via HomeSeer the eventual goal is to automate everything so that when a sensor reads high the respective devices in that area that are able to mitigate those sensor values will then be activated.

Bought another Pi Zero W at Microcenter last night as they sent over another coupon for free SD cards, but due to the long duration between polling, I will probably end up creating a cron that will poll each sensor once and not rely on the Python script to cycle, so that I can query multiple sensors back-to-back. The second Pi is just as a backup as I have not done any range testing yet.

Connecting to the Pi Zero W via WiFi within a PuTTY terminal window that surprisingly never lost connection (except when there was a damn power outage, but forgot to plug the Pi into the QC3 adapter that is on the UPS battery side), so as long as there is power I can pretty much position the Pi anywhere in the house. Then Bluetooth has a theoretical range of 200m, but walls/floors/etc. are going to severely limit this indoors. Nothing a HomeSeer user isn't used to with their existing Z-Wave, Zigbee or other wireless sensors.

If anybody wants the info now to do the same then just let me know, otherwise I will post updates as I finalize my testing and get everything into HomeSeer including little guide on how to do that part.

[brientim]

Other alternatives can be found here.


https://www.uradmonitor.com/products/

There are multiple version and the small one is called the Smoggie $110 or a larger with additional data points look at the A3.

[ServiceXp]

Watching

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[brink0423@gmail.com]

I use the IQAir Air Visual Pro to monitor indoor and outdoor air quality (Amazon). They have an open API that I use the Big5 plugin to make calls to and return the results to Homeseer. Two separate API calls are necessary to get both indoor and outdoor measurements. The indoor measurements are taken directly from the unit itself (via the cloud) while the outdoor readings are returned from the nearest NWS air quality monitoring station.

I currently have the one unit in my Man Cave, but I do plan to add more to the main house. So far I've been very satisfied with it. We allow guests to smoke in the man cave, so when the IQAir detects cigarette smoke I have an event that turns on the ceiling fans and also turns the HVAC fan on (if it's not already running). The higher the levels of CO2 detected, the faster the ceiling fans turn. Works great. I'm also going to add a ceiling fan exhaust (like used in a bathroom) to help keep the air ventilated and use an event to turn the fan on/off depending on CO2 level.

Here is how my indoor devices look:



And here is how I set up my outdoor devices:



Not sure if this is what you are looking for exactly but at least it will give you some ideas.

--Barry

Hey Barry,

Great job on the IQAir device, Would you mind sharing your Big5 Setup?

Thanks,

Mark