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The bottleneck might be the air in the room

blog.mikebowler.ca

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Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#161

Post by Scroll_Swe »

deanc wrote: post #13

I’m not saying this isn’t a legitimate concern but this really seems to have exploded amongst the tech community as the next obsession. I see this pop up on X every few weeks. Is the concern about this really based on actual science? Is there empirical data proving people are less productive or are damaging themselves as a result of heightened CO2 levels? And I don’t mean observational epidemiology studies.

I mean try it for yourself... open a window a bit unless you live in a hellhole.

Also go for a walk, unless you live in a hellhole.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#162

Post by Lwerewolf »

londons_explore wrote: post #139
microtonal wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that the common tech requires sensors in an air-chamber. E.g. NDIR works by firing IR at a frequency that is absorbed by CO2. A sensor on the other side either measures the amount of IR light that got through (optical NDIR) or pressure/sound waves (photoacoustic NDIR). I guess that it's hard to use any existing sensors, because they are relatively large and probably water could easily get into th…

Oxygen sensors used in car catalyst systems use a different effect based on electrochemistry. I see no reason that couldn't be minuaritized to grain-of-sand size. The question is if oxygen levels are as good an indicator as CO2 levels... I suspect not.

The ones in cars need to be heated up quite a bit in order to work, and you still need reference air. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that CO2 isn't a problem but rather an indication of a lack of oxygen in the first place, so it technically could work... just not if you're measuring the environment itself.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#163

Post by microtonal »

Gigachad wrote: post #147
embedding-shape wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They recently overhauled their lineup and replaced all Zigbee devices by Thread + Matter. Uuh, seems not keeping up with social media finally backfired. That sounds horrible! So far IKEA been a great experience when it comes to HA+Zigbee stuff, and I started buying stuff relying on they'd keep just keeping up with that, really sad to hear they've changed course. The "secret pairing mode" stuff sounds the same as cu…

Thread is significantly better. Zigbee relied on proprietary hubs and apps or hacky work arounds. Matter over thread devices don't need a brand specific hub or app. You can literally control the new ikea products direct from a modern iphone which includes a thread radio, no hub, server or app required. If you already own the ikea hub, they secretly put thread radio in it which was just sitting unused in preparation f…

It's complicated. Matter over Thread is indeed nice in that it you only need generic Thread and Matter servers. It also makes it easier to share credentials between ecosystems. Thread itself is also a pretty nice standard technically.

There are also strong downsides though, one is privacy and future cloud lock-in. Zigbee is fully local. Previous Thread standards added the option for NAT64 so that Thread devices can access the internet and there were some Thread + Matter devices that already require internet access for full functionality (IIRC some Nuki smart locks, but I might misremember). However, Thread 1.4 also adds support for Thread devices to get a globally routable IPv6 address. The Thread 1.4 whitepaper is pretty blunt about what this enables:

Simplified Cloud Integration: Thread devices can now seamlessly connect directly to cloud services, enabling remote control, monitoring, and over-the-air firmware updates.

https://www.threadgroup.org/Portals/0/Documents/Thread_1.4_F...

The fact that Thread and Matter are strongly pushed by Google, Apple, etc. should tell you enough.

Now, a TBR may simply allow you to disable NAT64 or globally routable IPv6 addresses (e.g. Home Assistant's addons), but many consumer implementations don't. E.g. the Apple TV is a Thread Border Router and does not allow disabling NAT64, so Thread devices can access the internet, send analytics, and can be cloud-controlled.

Also, the ecosystem is still pretty immature, as a result of which you can encounter issues, typically resulting in unstable device connectivity. E.g. TREL does often does not work well. Apple has some hacks to fix most of the issues, but it only works well between Apple devices. So it's generally the best to avoid combining multiple TBRs into the same network.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#164

Post by dan-robertson »

stein1946 wrote: post #77
gpt5 wrote: post #6

I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…

> Raising awareness is the only real solution. You'd have to raise awareness on every single person in the room and them sustain pressure to the organization in order to have proper CO2 levels in the room/organization. And then you have to align every other person on every other organization to do this as well and hope for the best. Or, you can do the right thing and have the state introduce regulations

I don’t think that’s right. If people have an easy way to measure the levels, and they can see something on their phone like ‘you spent 8 hours today above 2000ppm CO2’ then the room will care a lot more than it did before, and people will be able to quickly see whether they have improved things. At my employer, I think it took us around 1000 employees until we randomly hired someone who happened to care a lot about CO2 levels and I think they managed to cause a decent increase in the amount that the company cared / thought about levels (this was around the end of Covid though so part of this may have been due to using CO2 levels as an indication of insufficient ventilation/air filtration).

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#165

Post by kingkawn »

microtonal wrote: post #115
gpt5 wrote: post #6

I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…

I think the issue is that the common tech requires sensors in an air-chamber. E.g. NDIR works by firing IR at a frequency that is absorbed by CO2. A sensor on the other side either measures the amount of IR light that got through (optical NDIR) or pressure/sound waves (photoacoustic NDIR). I guess that it's hard to use any existing sensors, because they are relatively large and probably water could easily get into th…

Mesh with the other Apple/et al devices in the room to take multiple samples and aggregate the results for an overall picture of the ambient co2

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#166

Post by girvo »

Aperocky wrote: post #80

This article is rated 100% on my AI smell meter, making it less trustworthy despite convincing arguments. For instance, I'm now really only sure that author measured a 2000 ppm CO2 in a meeting room once. Everything else could just be LLM trying to invent convincing argument.

Glad someone else is saying it. It has that exact LLM cadence to it, horrible.

The worst thing is, I'm pretty sure humans are starting to mimic that cadence too...

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#167

Post by smooc »

I do feel impaired around 1000ppm. I get headaches. At home I got a few Air Gradient Ones (no affiliation, but they are great) and connected those to my Home Assistant to turn up the ventilation in stages (above 650ppm go up, above 800ppm again, at 1000ppm max). I also do this for the bedrooms, cause in the night it goes up too.

The article talks about "within the hour". With four people in my living room doing normal things it jumps within 20min to around 1000ppm. If I am wrestling with my kids much sooner.

In offices companies often neglect it.

edit: if you are cooking on gas it also has an immediate effect on co2 of course apart from other small particles

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#168

Post by mdf »

legulere wrote: post #33
gpt5 wrote: post #6

I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…

I guess the problem is with the price of the sensors. Just look how expensive the Aranet 4 home shown in article is. There are worse devices for less like the IKEA alpstuga. I also don’t know how much electricity they pull.

Ruuvi Air[1] seems to be close to the middle in both price and CO2 measurement accuracy between aranet4 and the IKEA device. I don't have personal experience with Ruuvi Air specifically, but have been using their cheaper Ruuvi Tags (that don't measure CO2) for temperature, humidity and air pressure measurement at home and office.

[1] https://ruuvi.com/air/

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#169

Post by hosteur »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #160
stein1946 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raising awareness is the only real solution. You'd have to raise awareness on every single person in the room and them sustain pressure to the organization in order to have proper CO2 levels in the room/organization. And then you have to align every other person on every other organization to do this as well and hope for the best. Or, you can do the right thing and have the state introduce regulations

Can't you just open a window a bit?

In lots of modern office buildings you can’t.
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