I'm the founder of AirGradient and last year we have decided to focus our company on open hardware air quality monitors that we produce professionally.<p>Our outdoor monitor Open Air has been designed from the start as an open hardware project with a beautiful plastic injected enclosure to demonstrate that open source hardware can look and perform on the same level like traditional products.<p>We do also work intensively with research institutions around the world to test the monitor and ensure that the monitors are as accurate as possible [1].<p>Happy to answer any question that might come up.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.airgradient.com/research/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.airgradient.com/research/</a>
I don't see any benefit in this product having two identical sensors side by side. Based on the datasheet, the reading between sensors is quite consistent, meaning that there's no improvement in accuracy. What would be better is to have two different sensors, one of which actually counts PM 10.0.<p>A little-known fact about these air quality sensors is that they don't actually measure three different particle sizes, they typically measure the smallest one and then return some statistically determined value for the larger ones.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.digikey.jp/htmldatasheets/production/2903006/0/0/1/pms5003-series-manual.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.digikey.jp/htmldatasheets/production/2903006/0/0...</a>
Time for the usual reminder that there is a search function on the bottom of every single YC page.<p>Air gradient has been extensively discussed here multiple times already.
The EPA had some money from the recovery funding and then the inflation reduction act to do more air quality monitoring stations - the EPA gave out 132 awards around the country, my city got one and we're putting up 68 sensors around town (one in each census tract) - the program and the awardees are here, if you're interested in seeing if your city got one:<p><a href="https://www.epa.gov/arp/arp-enhanced-air-quality-monitoring-communities-competitive-grant" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.epa.gov/arp/arp-enhanced-air-quality-monitoring-...</a><p>(My city is using QuantAQ sensors, which weren't cheap)
This company is pretty awesome! I lived in Chiang Mai for a few years and the burning seasons were absolutely horrible. I will never live there again. I bought an air quality sensor from a makerspace in Chiang Mai, and I was a bit frustrated that they kept it closed source so I couldn't get the data into Home Assistant.<p>I currently have TuYa TS0601 Zigbee air quality sensors in every room of my house. I don't think the data is very accurate, but I just use it to automatically turn on the rangehood fan when the PM25 spikes in the kitchen, and an extractor fan in the workshop. Also to monitor CO2 in the bedroom and our offices and turn on the nearby bathroom fans. So I use them more as a boolean sensor and don't really need precise measurements.<p>I live in New Zealand and fortunately our outdoor air quality is very good all year. If I lived somewhere with frequent wildfires (e.g. Sydney or Melbourne), then I'd probably upgrade to the airgradient indoor sensors.<p>New Zealand is small and we have a lot of problems (cost of living, housing crisis, low salaries, etc.) so we've been thinking about moving somewhere else, but I don't know if I can give up the clean air. It's actually a pretty nice place to live.
I always get surprised by how many sensor products offer temperature and humidity but not pressure, considering that combined MEMS temperature/humidity/pressure chips are available. Having a sensor which can do temperature/humidity/pressure as well as air quality/CO2 would definitely be of interest to me.
If the device worked with ZigBee, I would get it immediately. However, it seems to support only WiFi, which means if someone gains physical access to the AirQuality monitor (which isn't exactly difficult since it is placed outside), they can potentially extract the WiFi password and gain full access to my network.
Here's another one on Adafruit (more time intensive but includes a VOC sensor) <a href="https://learn.adafruit.com/air-quality-sensor-silo-house" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://learn.adafruit.com/air-quality-sensor-silo-house</a>
WIRED DATA CONNECTION.<p>It needs a wired data connection. For crying out loud. Don't screw this up like PurpleAir did.<p>You already have a micro-usb (or maybe usb-c) plug for the power. You're not adding an extra wire.<p>The amount of nightmarish grief the wifi in purpleairs causes makes me want to scream.<p>Even if you manage to magically fix all the reliability problems, it's a safety issue. A town near me whose economy is supported by a paper mill hunted down the person who was running a purpleair and pressured their landlord into cancelling their lease. The town then set up indoor stations at the school and library -- where they report on filtered, air-conditioned air.<p>You can wardrive for these things using their MAC address. They have to be outdoors.<p>Stop it.
I'm trying to order one of these for my home in Thailand in an area with poor air quality monitoring. On the website it looks like you ship to Thailand for just $20. Is that really the case?
I’ve been running the open source “stop light” design for awhile. It works great but the internet is very flaky on the esp board. Not entirely sure why, but easy to disable internet and just use the colors.<p>It helped me identify patterns, such as CO2 settling in my large living room.<p>Knowing that the CO2 levels are healthy throughout the day really helps me feel better about living in a new sealed home.
I strongly recommend to not always trust everything because it's open source. Air Quality as all different weather ingredients are measure and there is a big difference how you measure. I am not advocate of any "pro" solution. I just want you to know to check many sources.
How well does the USB-C cable (and the rest of the PCB!) hold up outdoors? Especially in areas with salt, like near a coast or a place where salt is used on the roads in winter? From what I understood the sensor isn't sealed?
@dang - kindly note this frequently posted topic by same user every few weeks. Not sure if this is just for advertising. Since this is being pushed by founder there should be at least be showhn?
The indoor monitor looks really interesting! I bought a Aranet4 recently, so don't think I'll invest in another Air Quality monitor soon, but I'm interested in checking this device for next buy.
If there is no rule about posting the same product every few days/weeks from the same person who is also the owner of the product, there should be one. @dang
Can it push data to <a href="https://sensor.community/en/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://sensor.community/en/</a> ?