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Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

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91–100 of 118 posts

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#91
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HEPA filters get more effective overtime in exchange for more restricted airflow. Thus the failure mode is "air is not flowing" and not "air is not getting cleaned". At home I use 3 air filters in various rooms. These are standard/mid-range Japanese Sharp filters. Japanese because we live in Japan, not because Japanese HEPA filters are special. The filters themselves can be bought for about 30$ online. When the filte…

> because we live in Japan May I ask why you're using them at all? Every time I look at Japanese cities they seem to have PM2.5 levels in a second-digit microgram range. A bad day seems to be something like 15 µg.

Poor ventilation and a stir fry on medium-high heat will bring you above harmful levels for several hours in my experience.

Candles, cleaning, frying. All very good ways to increase air pollution in your home that nobody speaks about.

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#92
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the lower priced options on Amazon junk compared to the DC1100? I’d like to get a monitor, but I know I’ll probably only use it 10 times. The Dylos would end up being about $25 / reading…

Good question, I bought a Dylos back in 2015 and can't remember how the other options stacked up when I researched it. I've been happy with the purchase and would recommend it if you're interested in watching air quality. It has a convenient "monitor mode" where it will re-sample the air every hour so it's not constantly running. It's neat to see how the air quality in a room changes based on having the windows open…

I found this link with test results:

https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-pm

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#93
post #83
post #66

I've built dynomight's DIY filter[^1], and I love it. No DRM issues either. [^1]: https://dynomight.net/better-DIY-air-purifier.html

Perhaps a stupid question. Why go to the trouble of bolting together four filters, instead of attaching the duct fan to a cylindrical HEPA filter? Then you just need two plates: one to adapt the duct inlet and one to seal the base of the filter. I think, as with many DIY projects, one must look to the pot growing community. They solved the problem of "how do I not stink out my apartment" a long time ago - duct fans a…

Cost and availability. Cylinder filters tend to be way more expensive ($30-50 per, I've seen true HEPA cylinder ones "for allergy sufferers" aka medical space, >$130) than rectangular (a few bucks). Rectangular also comes in a wider variety of form factors than cylinders, with more different filter styles (eg different thickness, with carbon, high flow, true HEPA/MERV >13).

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#94

I think my question with this would be: How accurate is the filter durability that the normal filter air purifier tracks? If it tracks reasonably well (which, without more info, I have my doubts for the same reason printer ink cartridge capacity tracking is bad), wouldn't using these stickers kind of defeat the purpose of using the filter in the air purifier, since these kinds of filters do have finite durability and…

If they wanted to really track the filter life, they would use a static pressure sensor like a lot of HVAC installations have. It's clear what the companies doing this DRM shit are prioritising, and it's not accuracy.

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#97
post #16
post #11

I've never experienced an air purifier, what's the general consensus? Do they make a difference? Perhaps a placebo? A must have? Genuinely interested if I'm missing out - For what it's worth I do live right on a main road in the UK, so I expect there is some level of pollution in the air.

My parents live in a very old house (~1700s) and it reduced the dust significantly. Not perfect but maybe it's on the model too. Like it's not an $1000 one which would probably work much better

They're pretty much all the same, just a fan in front of a HEPA filter. If you can get a square fan and tape a HEPA filter in front of it you'd get pretty much the same result as many modern air purifiers.

You're paying for convenience and some bells and whistles (like a mobile app and an air quality reader), but the underlying technology behind it is pretty bare-bones, heavily tested, and heavily used in industrial applications.

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#98
The big problem I see with DRM on air filters is that air filters don't do anything complicated. Remove the electronics module and connect the fan directly to power. Done. They should have done that in the factory and pocketed the profit from not buying electronics and NRE.

(This is less possible on things like printers, which have to synthesize somewhat complicated motion, carefully release ink at the right time, etc.)

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#99
post #11

I've never experienced an air purifier, what's the general consensus? Do they make a difference? Perhaps a placebo? A must have? Genuinely interested if I'm missing out - For what it's worth I do live right on a main road in the UK, so I expect there is some level of pollution in the air.

One of my cats, who's since passed away, was asthmatic. Air purifiers throughout the house and a motion activated box fan plus furnace filter near the litterboxes resulted in an immediate and noticeable improvement in his quality of life. I've noticed a similar improvement in my own health.

I've since ended up with a variety of air cleaners:

* IKEA FÖRNUFTIG[0] is a small and relatively quiet unit. It can be wall-mounted, so it can take up virtually no space. The unit is reasonably priced. Filters are cheap.

* IKEA STARKVIND[1] is a much larger unit (also available in end table form[2] to save space), but also relatively quiet on the lower speeds. It's an interesting unit - integrates into Home Assistant (the unit speaks Zigbee), and has a PM2.5 air quality sensor. This unit is a lot more expensive than the FÖRNUFTIG, but the filters are reasonably priced.

* The box fan plus single furnace filter is incredibly noisy, but really good at dealing with cat litter dust. There is a huge range of price/quality when it comes to filters[, I just use the cheaper ones since I'm focusing on large dust particles.

* I have a couple of units that use Bionaire aer1 filters[3]. The units I have are quiet and reasonably sized, though they get louder as the filter fills up. The filters are expensive, and one of the units takes two of them which doesn't help matters. There is a variety of filters available.

There's a huge spectrum of tradeoffs between noise, size of the unit, filtration effectiveness, replacement filter cost, and extra features. I'm not convinced I've found the sweet spot yet.

[0] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/foernuftig-air-purifier-white-5...

[1] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-black-40...

[2] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/starkvind-table-with-air-purifi...

[3] https://www.bionairecanada.com/en_CA/service-and-support/aer...

Re: Reverse engineering Xiaomi air purifier NFC stickers

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh ok, I heard some of them switch off for sure (after a few hours). I read this on an online forum discussing integration with Home Assistant, some users got around it by just setting an automation in Home Assistant to switch it back on again :) Which is what I would have done if my 3S had had the same problem. But it doesn't. Strange that some models are affected but others not.

Maybe it is because I am in the EU? This stuff is obviously in software and all my xiaomi gadgets get ota updates regularly.

In AU, mine doesn't turn off either.
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