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Does anyone have experience with buying an air quality sensor for personal use? I know of Plume and AirBeam but have not seen them in use.

rahimnathwani 8y ago
A popular one among expats where I live (Beijing) is the Laser Egg.
jonathankoren 8y ago
I have a https://www.purpleair.com/ https://www.purpleair.com/ . It measures PM 1.0, PM 2.5, and PM 10.0 . It uses the same laser scanning sensor that everyone else seems to be using, a https://learn.adafruit.com/pm25-air-quality-sensor/overview https://learn.adafruit.com/pm25-air-quality-sensor/overview , only it has two of them. You have to plug it into the wall and it communicates over wifi. Honestly, it feels a bit mom-and-pop-ish (it's literally housed in a PVC pipe.), but it seems to work. Purple Air, talks about how it uploads everything to PurpleAir.com, but their website is really really janky. Luckily, the device has a web server, and spits out data in JSON, so even if Purple Air goes belly up, your sensor should still work. I have mine integrated into http://www.weewx.com/ http://www.weewx.com/ via https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-purpleair https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-purpleair , and I calculate an Air Quality Index from this data using https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-aqi https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-aqi . Ideally, I'd like a sensor that calculated all the other pollutants you're supposed to track, but this is what I have. The sensor is responsive. When the smoke filtered down from the Mendocino Complex fire last week, I saw a huge spike across the particulates, and even today with the Spare The Air alert, the AQI is quite a bit elevated. The one thing I'll note about its performance, is that after installation, the sensor read abnormally high until the first rain. After that, its performance is on par with other surrounding sensors. Would I recommend it? I don't know. I feel like I should have shopped around more for one, so I can't really compare it to anything. I do like how it reports data in an open manner.
oh_sigh 8y ago
I have this one and it works quite well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071RF6B2Y https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071RF6B2Y I compared it with a friends much more expensive device, and the results were within 5% of each other.
- sonofblah 8y ago
  None on Amazon appear to have overall high ratings. There's probably opportunity in the space for someone who can create an effective, reasonably-priced model.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    Agreed. I was concerned about ordering mine based on the reviews, but after looking at a lot of reviews, it is because people didn't read the manual(or, couldn't understand it's Chinglish). The actual product itself works well though, and the readings were within a few percent of my friends Fluke 985(~$5k particle counter - because he is a HVAC professional).
exogen 8y ago
I have a Foobot which is a consumer-friendly version, less like a professional instrument and more like a smart speaker. The neat thing is that it has an API, so I was able to build my own pretty dashboard showing PM, VOCs, and CO2 in my apartment.

rahimnathwani 8y ago

A popular one among expats where I live (Beijing) is the Laser Egg.

jonathankoren 8y ago

I have a https://www.purpleair.com/ https://www.purpleair.com/ . It measures PM 1.0, PM 2.5, and PM 10.0 . It uses the same laser scanning sensor that everyone else seems to be using, a https://learn.adafruit.com/pm25-air-quality-sensor/overview https://learn.adafruit.com/pm25-air-quality-sensor/overview , only it has two of them. You have to plug it into the wall and it communicates over wifi. Honestly, it feels a bit mom-and-pop-ish (it's literally housed in a PVC pipe.), but it seems to work. Purple Air, talks about how it uploads everything to PurpleAir.com, but their website is really really janky. Luckily, the device has a web server, and spits out data in JSON, so even if Purple Air goes belly up, your sensor should still work. I have mine integrated into http://www.weewx.com/ http://www.weewx.com/ via https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-purpleair https://github.com/bakerkj/weewx-purpleair , and I calculate an Air Quality Index from this data using https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-aqi https://github.com/jonathankoren/weewx-aqi . Ideally, I'd like a sensor that calculated all the other pollutants you're supposed to track, but this is what I have. The sensor is responsive. When the smoke filtered down from the Mendocino Complex fire last week, I saw a huge spike across the particulates, and even today with the Spare The Air alert, the AQI is quite a bit elevated. The one thing I'll note about its performance, is that after installation, the sensor read abnormally high until the first rain. After that, its performance is on par with other surrounding sensors. Would I recommend it? I don't know. I feel like I should have shopped around more for one, so I can't really compare it to anything. I do like how it reports data in an open manner.

oh_sigh 8y ago

I have this one and it works quite well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071RF6B2Y https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071RF6B2Y I compared it with a friends much more expensive device, and the results were within 5% of each other.

sonofblah 8y ago
None on Amazon appear to have overall high ratings. There's probably opportunity in the space for someone who can create an effective, reasonably-priced model.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  Agreed. I was concerned about ordering mine based on the reviews, but after looking at a lot of reviews, it is because people didn't read the manual(or, couldn't understand it's Chinglish). The actual product itself works well though, and the readings were within a few percent of my friends Fluke 985(~$5k particle counter - because he is a HVAC professional).

exogen 8y ago

I have a Foobot which is a consumer-friendly version, less like a professional instrument and more like a smart speaker. The neat thing is that it has an API, so I was able to build my own pretty dashboard showing PM, VOCs, and CO2 in my apartment.