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Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

airgradient.com

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Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#41

Post by ahaucnx »

cyberax wrote: post #36
ahaucnx wrote: post #2

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. 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. We do also work intensively…

How good is the calibration for your temperature and humidity sensors? I'm absolutely miffed by the poor-quality sensors that are off by 10% humidity and 2-3C of temperature. I bought several sensors to try and find the best ones, and now like a man with two watches I'm never sure what the actual time is.

Most of the times the sensor modules are actually pretty accurate but the heating up of the enclosure e.g. from heat radiated by the MCU creates the issues. In our indoor monitor it took us several months to get the airflow through the enclosure right so that the temperature and humidity sensors are very close to ambient.

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#42

Post by ahaucnx »

cvwright wrote: post #39
ahaucnx wrote: post #2

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. 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. We do also work intensively…

This is random but I’d love to hear more about what’s involved in designing an enclosure and getting it manufactured at scale.

The tooling for the plastic enclosure was quite complex and time consuming. If there is interest I can write a blog post about it.

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#44

Post by frognumber »

traceroute66 wrote: post #5

Time for the usual reminder that there is a search function on the bottom of every single YC page. Air gradient has been extensively discussed here multiple times already.

I don't mind the repost. It's doing good work. It's good to be reminded of it, and it's a slightly different thing each time. I'll buy it when it's ready for prime time.

The founder reads this.

Founder: What's held me back from buying this is a lack of github links and instructions. EVERY place you say "open source" should link to the repo. The repo should have CLEAR instructions for how to hack this.

There's a lot of copy like "We provide detailed instructions and videos" but NO hyperlink to said detailed instructions or videos. Any place you mention specs should link to ACTUAL specs. What's your BOM? What microcontroller are you using? Do I rewrite the firmware in Python? Rust? MakeCode? Etc.

Those are the tires I want to kick. If my child can program this in MakeCode and it's designed for tinkering, it's a no-brainer. If it's on github, and easy to set up to work from my desktop, it's reasonable. If it involves setting up docker containers and proprietary environments for hacking C code, it's not as obvious a buy. If I can't figure out how to get started in 30 seconds, I assume it's the last one. I have a lot of projects around the house I wish I'd done, and I'm not buying more until a few of those finish.

Also, I will never pay for your service. The whole point of open everything is I control my data.

The other piece I'd like is a dirt-cheap set of temperature / humidity tools. I bought an 8-channel weather station, so I can monitor temperature indoors and in each room. I'd love to switch to something more open.

Again, a lot of this comes down to how easy it is to get started. If I can make dashboards in 5 minutes with numpy / plotly / pylab / etc., I'm delighted. If I can't, but it's not bad, I'm grumpier. etc.

So in conclusion, I'd do user studies and think-aloud protocols with customers.

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#45

Post by hpb42 »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #21
ahaucnx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's a good point. It probably makes sense to put it on a separate WiFi network (or a guest network) if access to the monitor is possible for unauthorized persons.

Definitely recommend a separate 2.4ghz N-mode only wifi with separate passphrase and client isolation on a different vlan with routing only out to the internet for all IoT stuff.

I'm curious, why N-mode only? What is the issue with a/b/g?

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#46

Post by epaulson »

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:

https://www.epa.gov/arp/arp-enhanced-air-quality-monitoring-...

(My city is using QuantAQ sensors, which weren't cheap)

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#47

Post by declan_roberts »

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.

It helped me identify patterns, such as CO2 settling in my large living room.

Knowing that the CO2 levels are healthy throughout the day really helps me feel better about living in a new sealed home.

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#48

Post by declan_roberts »

traceroute66 wrote: post #5

Time for the usual reminder that there is a search function on the bottom of every single YC page. Air gradient has been extensively discussed here multiple times already.

I don’t understand, is this a problem?

There’s nothing new under the sun.

Re: Open Source Outdoor Air Quality Monitor

#49

Post by declan_roberts »

ahaucnx wrote: post #12
kingsloi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome work! Do you have any plans to add/track gas pollutants? I run a similar open source app specifically for my little community in Gary, IN https://millerbeach.community and run a RAMP monitor provided by a local company Sensit Technologies, and a PurpleAir II and have about ~4 years worth of data in 15 min intervals. I've been meaning to swap out the PurpleAir with another, but I'll swap it out with this inste…

We started testing electrochemical NO and NO2 sensors from Alpha Sense in our lab and are in the early stages to design a unit that would also measure these gases but we are many months away to have something in the market.

I can’t wait for this, especially with how often gas stoves are in the news lately.
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