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Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

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Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#91

Post by reassembled »

ahaucnx wrote: post #3

Author here. I wrote this article a few weeks ago after discovering that a well known air quality monitor in the market that retails for more than USD 1000 actually uses a PM module that costs less than USD 20. Often people assume that the more expensive, the better but as you can see in the article this is often not the case -especially when it comes to the accuracy of the monitor. If you are looking for an open sou…

Have you compared the Sensirion SEN55 against the Plantower sensors? I ask because I’ve recently picked up both and have played around with them each individually but haven’t compared them for accuracy yet. The nice thing about the SEN55 is that it contains all of the sensors in one unit (PM1.0 to PM10.0, temperature, Relative Humidity, NOX and VOC).

They do cost a little bit more than the Plantower units, about $30-40USD. For anyone looking at the Sensirion sensors, be aware that the SEN5x products span a range, and only the SEN55 has all of the above sensors in one unit. I’ve found the Sensirion software to be pretty nice to work with. I was able to port their embedded i2c example repo to ESP32 with little trouble.

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#92

Post by autoexec »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #83
trog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

co2.click also worth a look: https://www.co2.click/

uf, looks so ugly. I can't justify putting this into my home.

it's a box? You could put a sticker on it, bedazzle it, or paint it with nail polish if you want something fancier.

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#93

Post by casenmgreen »

ahaucnx wrote: post #3

Author here. I wrote this article a few weeks ago after discovering that a well known air quality monitor in the market that retails for more than USD 1000 actually uses a PM module that costs less than USD 20. Often people assume that the more expensive, the better but as you can see in the article this is often not the case -especially when it comes to the accuracy of the monitor. If you are looking for an open sou…

I would buy a couple of these in an instant, it's exactly what I want, except it's so BIG. I want something as small as reasonably possible.

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#95

Post by Lewton »

lajupechere wrote: post #30
sidmitra wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but do you(or someone else) have a recommendation of which scale does not do this? Something that's not consumer grade, but not "enterprise cost"

My withings is constantly .2 fluctuating. If it’s faking that I’m going to chuck it out the window. It’s a very good scale, in aggregate the readings are useful.

Another shout out for Withings, I definitely do not recognize the fake accuracy problem with this scale

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#96

Post by thenickdude »

Has anybody found an accessible solution for sensing PM0.1 (nanoparticles)?

As far as I know the state of the art on these is condensation particle counters, which use a supersaturated gas (e.g. of isopropyl alcohol or butanol) to glom onto the tiny particles to make them big enough to be sensed optically.

Are there any novel approaches, or maybe a cheaper CPC?

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#97

Post by dementik »

mdp2021 wrote: post #73

Slightly parallel: does anybody know if there exist products to detect more "local" pollution? Like an electronic nose that would be able to detect "sources", e.g. of mould or chemicals (for disinfection or fixing). I.e. not just the "room air quality", but spots causing it. (It is for a bit of an urgency that emerged in a building.)

Afaik there are no simple sensors for this but havong gone through probably similar situation here, few things what I have learned: - voc sensor can detect lots of stuff, but reports just total value, still, voc sensor can be good way to detect if there is something wrong - our local laboratories have test sets which can be ordered home. Those cost something like 200eur, are placed e.g. on the table for an hour and those collect air. Then the unit is sent to laboratory which will report total voc (good to get a clue how right your own sensor is) and also detailed info on chemicals. For moulds there are different test sets - if some material is suspected to emit something, they can also identify material tvoc and detailed chemicals (so if there is some "bad" chemical on air sample, this is usually to confirm the source)

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#98

Post by rocketbop »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #45
ignite wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just pick up a five pound weight and step on the scale, then put it down and step off. Step on again, and get he correct weight. Annoying, but it works.

Thats like having a car that always drives me somewhere I don't want before it drives me where I want. What the actual f*ck. How are people okay with having such garbage in their homes. Why not just buy an analog spring scale...

I suspect the scale being accurate +-30g is sufficient for personal weight management unless you’re a professional boxer or need it to be exact for some reason.

Re: Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

#99

Post by xmdx »

hammock wrote: post #18
ahaucnx wrote: post #3

Author here. I wrote this article a few weeks ago after discovering that a well known air quality monitor in the market that retails for more than USD 1000 actually uses a PM module that costs less than USD 20. Often people assume that the more expensive, the better but as you can see in the article this is often not the case -especially when it comes to the accuracy of the monitor. If you are looking for an open sou…

The same is true of digital bathroom scales. In fact almost all consumer grade digital scales have “fake accuracy” built into the firmware that ensures the same exact weight shows up when you step on the scale twice in a row, even if you pick up e.g a quarter-pound weight in your hand the second time

Surprisingly my random scales off of Amazon do not do this. Accurate both times.
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