Does anyone know of a reliable and cheap CO2 monitor (other data about air quality is not needed) for a music room that will be kept almost tight closed with potentially more than 1 person playing music? I need to know when levels will rise above normal so that we can stop and take a pause to exchange air. I've done some research and found complains about fake products coming from the usual suspects, some of which use alcohol sensors disguised as CO2 ones, which of course don't work.
I've taken DIY into consideration, then again discovered they sell fake parts too, like some MH-Z19 modules found on Ali* and elsewhere.
I appreciate them not trying to upsell their product, but give what seems like an honest comparison to their competitor.
I have a Purple Air monitor and it’s done me well, but it’s great seeing an alternative with better access to the data.
I may have to give it a shot!
I got a DIY basic kit, and was pretty surprised when I saw that after 8 hours of sleep the CO2 level was 3600 ppm in the bedroom. My wife still jokes about the way I woke her up. I immediately said "We're basically suffocating". Maybe it was a little bit too dramatic sure, but kind of true.<p>The levels go above 1000 ppm in less than an hour with both of us in there.<p>Opening the windows to ventillate doesn't really solve this, as you'd need to keep opening and closing them every hour. I'm thinking about installing a HRV system, but struggling to find a model that could be integrated into Home Assistant. (ERV not necessary as I live in a european country with temperate climate, the humidity is mostly OK)<p>In the meantime I have two windows tilted open permanently in another room with the doors open. This keeps CO2 under 1000 ppm, but pretty bad for energy efficiency.<p>Overall pretty happy with the product, definitely made me much more aware of the air quality. I want to build a portable one with a display and logging to check out the car, the office, maybe the hotel rooms on a trip, the plane, etc.
<a href="https://www.airthings.com/view-plus" rel="nofollow">https://www.airthings.com/view-plus</a> isn't included in this comparison, but should be. Very happy with it.
FYI The "Buy as Kit" link on <a href="https://www.airgradient.com/outdoor/#comparison" rel="nofollow">https://www.airgradient.com/outdoor/#comparison</a> actually takes you to the Indoor monitor kit in the shop instead of the Outdoor kit.
Does anyone have an opinion on which VOC sensor is better?<p>It appears the Purple Air uses the Bosch BME688 while the AirGradient uses the Sensirion SGP41.<p>I’ve used the Kaiterra Laser Egg for detecting VOCs previously, as well as some off-brand handheld device off Amazon. They mostly agree.
I bought an Extech CO210 CO2/Temp/Humidity datalogger about ten years ago. It's been a very useful, reliable device. Maybe there are newer models or different manufacturers (e.g. the Aranet 4) that make ones that would work for your application case. I didn't just want the readout, I wanted datalogging, and back then it was way more expensive to do datalogging than to just have a readout.
I've been using the Awair air quality monitor (<a href="https://getawair.com" rel="nofollow">https://getawair.com</a>) for over 5 years and I'm really happy with it. I've built a simple dashboard to visualize the readings: <a href="https://github.com/alfozan/Air-Quality-Dashboard">https://github.com/alfozan/Air-Quality-Dashboard</a>