Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
airgradient.com
Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
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Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#2I plan to pick up some AirGradient units and phase out my AirThings devices simply because I want to keep all my data local and open. However, I do wish 1) it could monitor Radon and 2) had a PoE powered sku.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#3After spending a decent amount on Sensibo equipment and finding its accuracy is laughably bad, I did a heap of research into PurpleAir and the other sensors on the market. I already had a couple of Aranet4 devices and wanted the same high level of accuracy they provided - and so it was really down to PurpleAir or AirGradient given the SenseAir and Planter sensors. I'd say clinched my decision - and I dropped quite a bit of money on 2 outdoors and 4 indoors, split between me and a friend.
Why didn't I do with PurpleAir? - The order above with AirGradient was about USD$800 (for kit form devices, excluding freight). PurpleAir for the same models is USD$1774. - PurpleAir seemed to require a Google login to put the devices on a map, and I don't like the big-vendor-lock-in. - Browsing the AirGradient forums, Achim (the founder) is really involved, and the open-source nature of the platform appealed.
For a (what appears to me to be, anyway!) small organisation, the quality and deliverable of the AirGradient system is exceptional. The equipment looks professional, joining it to the AirGradient dashboard is surprisingly easy, and the dashboard itself is really slick. It's fast, it works as direct icon on my iPhone, and does it's job (giving me key info) really well.
In saying all that, I'd better clarify I'm getting nothing out of this glowing review! I just love it when tech works well, as it should, and when it does it should be recognised and supported.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#4What do the two ownerships clauses (quoted below) mean in practice? It's unlikely AirThings will come after me if I download all the data from my sensors and post them online. And is there any evidence that they've gone after people who have created open source interfaces to their APIs? It sounds like their lawyers just wrote aggressive clauses into their contracts to cover their asses in case they are acquired or want to utilize the data in other ways.
> In 15.4. of Airthings T&C it writes: “We own and shall retain ownership of all rights to all data and information collected via the Services provided to you…"
> Furthermore, in 15.2 Airthings claims all rights for modifications that you might carry out on the Airthings monitor: “You hereby assign to Airthings all right, title, and interest (including Intellectual Property Rights) that you may have in any custom developments, modifications, or derivative works of the Services and Products created or developed by or for you, including but not limited to design, artwork, technology, software, data, functionality, and documentation."
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#5I have both the Airthings Wave+ and the AirGradient Pro. I like them both. The Wave+ can connect to Home Assistant just fine with Bluetooth so there’s no worry about “owning” the data etc. I didn’t care for the initial software that came with the AirGradient but it was easy enough to flash once I understood how ESPHome worked.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#6What do the two ownerships clauses (quoted below) mean in practice? It's unlikely AirThings will come after me if I download all the data from my sensors and post them online. And is there any evidence that they've gone after people who have created open source interfaces to their APIs? It sounds like their lawyers just wrote aggressive clauses into their contracts to cover their asses in case they are acquired or wa…
Achim from AirGradient here. You raise an excellent point.
Often T&C are indeed just written by lawyers and potentially not being enforced at all.
However, it really does restrict what you can do with the monitors in practical ways.
Let's say you want to build a business around using AirThings monitors with your own dashboard analysing the data and giving value added services. If you don't officially own the data, are you actually allowed to use it and monetize it for your own purposes?
With these T&Cs and if you do this (and I actually know a few companies that do exactly that) you open a legal liability that AirThings could come after you.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#7I have both the Airthings Wave+ and the AirGradient Pro. I like them both. The Wave+ can connect to Home Assistant just fine with Bluetooth so there’s no worry about “owning” the data etc. I didn’t care for the initial software that came with the AirGradient but it was easy enough to flash once I understood how ESPHome worked.
With our latest firmware we now natively support Home Assistant and the monitors are auto discovered. So no need to flash ESPHome anymore.
We also expose a local API that makes it very easy to make GET requests to the monitor within your local network and basically gives you all possibilities for easy integration.
[1]https://www.airgradient.com/home-assistant/
[2]https://github.com/airgradienthq/arduino/blob/master/docs/lo...
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#8I plan to pick up some AirGradient units and phase out my AirThings devices simply because I want to keep all my data local and open. However, I do wish 1) it could monitor Radon and 2) had a PoE powered sku.
Yes, these things have come up quite a few times. Regarding Radon there are unfortunately no 3rd party sensor modules available that we know off (and are reasonably priced). If you know any, please let us know.
Regarding PoE, we have made a survey some time ago and less than 5% of the users were interested in PoE. However, the hardware integration is not straight forward and it would increase the price of the unit for all customers. This is the main reason we did not do it yet.
However our open hardware has an extension plug and this could be an excellent community project for somebody to develop this as an extension card and then share the design.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#9I just got a pi zero w and a adafruit spg30. Not perfect, but good enough, I own the data, and I send it to grafana for alerting.
Re: Air Quality Monitors Compared: AirGradient One vs. Airthings
#10I just got my AirGradient Ones a couple weeks ago. It was quite nice that I was able to set them up local-only with absolutely no fuss. Works wonderfully with Home Assistant.
Also it was definitely worth saving money going with the DIY version. All that they leave for you is final assembly: plugging in 3 modules and wrenching down 4 self-tapping screws.