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Low-cost open source device can measure air pollution anywhere
- AceJohnny2 4y agoUsual disclaimer that MIT's PR dept is really effective (I've stopped paying attention them because of so much hype), and there's quite a chasm between a proof of concept and a mass-market device.
- alsodumb 4y agoYup, they are really good. The Open Agriculture fraud is a living example: https://gizmodo.com/mit-built-a-theranos-for-plants-1837968240 https://gizmodo.com/mit-built-a-theranos-for-plants-18379682...
- gumby 4y agoThat one was supercharged by the Media Lab's PR organ. But even without that assistance, the regular MIT "news" office is head and shoulders above its peers in making the trivial appear transformational and the outstanding appear...boring. My favorite was a publicity piece about a new proof for the behavior of higher-order manifolds with some absurd justification as to why you should care, something like how it would revolutionize battery electrodes or something like that. PS: "living example" was a nice touch.
- alsodumb 4y agoHahaha I was worried no one’s gonna get my pun.
- grozzle 4y agoIt would be useful if headlines said "~$10", "sub $100", "sub $1000" et cetera, instead of vague terms like "low-cost".
- cinntaile 4y agoAccording to the linked paper in the article it's <2500usd. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2023.119692 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2023.119692
- cwkoss 4y agoI wouldn't call that 'low cost'
- segmondy 4y agohow much can you buy one for or build one for?
- SECProto 4y ago> how much can you buy one for or build one for? $10: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vindriktning-air-quality-sensor-60515911/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vindriktning-air-quality-sensor... presumably not quite feature-comparable, but the article and website are rather absent in report what exactly the "flatburn" is detecting - sounds like "fine particulate" (PM2.5? PM10?) and NO2
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThis is like comparing apples and Orangutans they are that different
- henearkr 4y agoThere is no NO2 sensor in the BOM.
- malfist 4y ago$640: https://shop.air-q.com/air-Q-pro-air-analyser-14-sensors https://shop.air-q.com/air-Q-pro-air-analyser-14-sensors Or if you're building yourself, $35: https://sensirion.com/products/catalog/SEN55 https://sensirion.com/products/catalog/SEN55 Both include NO sensors.
- gnramires 4y agoCan't find the air quality sensor on their bill of materials
- shrx 4y agoThe Readme file [1] on their GitHub repo contains this bill of materials: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-fR-0hTxHKbjaRf8DbH62WgUFVeNE4eUEsaAd-YdDYg/edit#gid=2089068555 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-fR-0hTxHKbjaRf8DbH6... This lists a "particle module", a temperature sensor and some other seemingly irrelevant sensors (GPS, accelerometer). [1] https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/tree/main/Build/Hardware/Hardware%20schematics https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/tree/main/Bui... edit: looks like the "particle module" is just a LTE/BT communication module, so really there don't seem to be any environmental sensors other than for temperature.
- detaro 4y agoYou are only looking at the list for the main board, the air quality sensor carrier is the second sheet of the doc.
- ivarvong 4y agoThere's a mention of the SEN5X here: https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/blob/main/Build/Hardware/Hardware%20schematics/Flatburn-sensor-board.pdf https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/blob/main/Bui...
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- jl6 4y agoI don’t know if this is the device to do it, but the premise is solid: create awareness that air pollution is a real thing affecting specific areas in which you are breathing right now, not just an abstract bad thing that may or may not be happening somewhere to someone.
- cactusplant7374 4y agoI'm debating buying one for myself so I can judge whether air pollution is effecting my asthma. You can find AQI for a lot of cities but it appears the calculation often isn't done with local devices. Satellite imaging?
- x3iv130f 4y agoFor home use, you should aim for multiple sensors that can track temperature, humidity, CO2, VOC, and PM2.5. CO2 is important to track as high concentrations can impact sleep quality and critical thinking ability. VOCs is important to track as they are associated with asthma and allergic reactions. CO2 can only be removed by opening a window. Most VOCs come from household chemicals and are only removed by using lots and lots of charcoal filters as the HEPA filters in household air purifiers aren't able to capture it in significant amounts.
- rnk 4y agoI like that but I also want to measure carbon monoxide making into my house and propane or natural gas leaks. What sensor does that also?
- Eisenstein 4y agoThe problem is that carbon monoxide sensors degrade, so any sensor that incorporates one will have a limited life.
- stephen_g 4y agoCO₂ can also be removed with mechanical ventilation, of course. Preferably heat- or energy-recovery ventilation to pre-condition the outside air being brought in, so you're not just dumping the air you expended energy heating or cooling straight out!
- uoaei 4y agoOfficial repo: https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS
- Karawebnetwork 4y agoLink to project website: https://senseable.mit.edu/flatburn/ https://senseable.mit.edu/flatburn/ Link to assembly guide: https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/blob/main/Build/Handbook/Flatburn_%20Assembly%20Guide.pdf https://github.com/MIT-Senseable-City-Lab/OSCS/blob/main/Bui... Link to bill of materials: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-fR-0hTxHKbjaRf8DbH62WgUFVeNE4eUEsaAd-YdDYg/edit#gid=2089068555 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-fR-0hTxHKbjaRf8DbH6... Naively searching for every lines of the bill of materials gives me around $300, with a handful of items being around $50 and everything else under $5. I'm sure a hobbyist could find the parts for cheaper, especially things like individuals connectors that I found for around $5. I've seen them go as low as $0.25 when bulk purchased. Disclaimer: it's possible that some SKUs led me to the wrong products. I am not into electronics. I encourage you do to the same exercise before drawing conclusions.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoPerhaps some industrious person (looks around room) could put together a BOM on a site like Mouser to make it a little easier to order many of the parts.
- clnq 4y agoNot to undermine the DIY aspect which could be fun, but it looks like you could buy an Atmotube for about half as much (if you take the research survey) — https://ukstore.atmotube.com/ https://ukstore.atmotube.com/. Though it doesn't register noise levels. They can also build you an Atmocube which can measure noise and a few other things for $200-$500 based on what I found online.
- theaussiestew 4y agoImpressive, I’ve been wanting to build a portable version of this for a while now. It would look like a smart band but integrate environmental sensors and the users would then be aware of how their environment is affecting them. They would also have the option of contributing their data to a collective dataset.
- simulator5g 4y agoThat would be a great feature for a smart watch.
- gniv 4y agoThe key word -- which is missing from the PR title, but is in the paper title -- is "calibration". The novelty is there. Apparently this is a big problem due to varying humidity levels.
- Havoc 4y agoNot just humidity - CO2 equivalent sensors are also quite fond of drifting
- dariosalvi78 4y agoI had a similar DIY project, also using some Alphasense sensors, + some cheaper metaloxide ones. It was somewhat promising, but it needs long-lasting colocation studies and, after I moved to Sweden, I lost any support from the local authorities and gave up. https://bochovj.wordpress.com/tag/air-quality/ https://bochovj.wordpress.com/tag/air-quality/
- mistrial9 4y agothere is an old man in Berkeley who has made very good money for more than thirty years, designing and selling these. No, he does not want to "open source" it (I tried).
- photochemsyn 4y agoThis sounds highly implausible for anything other than very crude and not-very-useful measurements. Quantifying air pollution is a fairly hard problem, chemically speaking. The composition of particulate matter is highly diverse as it may arise from a wide variety of sources, i.e. agricultural, industrial, wildfires, diesel engines, etc. Just looking at the particulate PM2.5/PM10, broadly speaking there's the organic carbon fraction and the inorganic metal fraction. The former is highly complex, e.g.: > "The considerably increased chromatographic resolution in GC×GC [gas chromatography] allows separation of many UCM [organic carbon] compounds while the TOFMS [mass spectrometer] supplies mass spectral data of all separated compounds. However, the data sets are getting enormously complex. In a typical PM2.5 sample from Augsburg more than 15,000 peaks can be detected... " https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0021967303015498 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00219... Some particulate matter may have a heavy metal fraction, some may not and that's also not easy to determine (but was a major factor in leaded gasoline pollution). Here's a sample of the kind of work that has to be done to get reliable measurements: > "...using quadrupole inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (q-ICP-MS). We report improved measurements of key aerosol elements including Al, V, Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn in airborne coarse particulate matter (PM10)... This technique was used to determine the elemental composition of over 150 PM10 samples collected from an industrialized region in Houston, TX." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003267010014522 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00032... On top of that there's nitrogen oxides and PAN, ozone, etc. The only relatively inexpensive recent innovations seem to be the use of drones to collect samples for lab analysis (would have been useful in East Palestine). Getting accurate measurements of all the species involved in air pollution requires a modern analytical lab packed with equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and highly trained technicians to operate. The press release and snippets from the paper don't address such important details at all.
- ddulaney 4y agoMost definitely it's hard to dig into the actual composition of air pollution. But "how much PM2.5 is in the air", while definitely crude, is still extremely useful. That said, decent sensors for PM concentration are already pretty cheap (<$100 for a module; ~$100 for a full package), so unless the price is going way down it's unclear how useful this particular innovation is.
- l1am0 4y agoThis feels like old news. Built such a thing for a german hacker initiative like 7years ago. Back then sub 50€ and still runs. Data available at luftdaten.info https://sensor.community/de/sensors/airrohr/ https://sensor.community/de/sensors/airrohr/
- MandieD 4y agoWe built those and got them running one evening at a Meetup in Erlangen - looks like they had to switch to a temperature/humidity sensor that requires soldering the pins on, because the ones we used back then came ready to plug in, not a soldering iron in sight.
- gsich 4y agoI have the same sensor but I don't trust those values at all. Especially after a few years when the sensor has dirt suckes in. Not sure how to calibrate those. I didn't buy 3 of them to measure the accuracy.
- throwaway8451 4y agoThese measurement devices have a limited lifetime and I think it is really the intake of dust and dirt that limits how long they can be used. That's why they're not running continously but for some seconds every few minutes (because flowing air will carry dust much more easily). If it's clogged up with dust or dirt, it really might be at end of life. I keep the electronics and sensor of mine in a closed box if I am not operating it.
- gsich 4y agoYes. But I can't see that, the sensor will still output values regardless of being clogged up. Not sure if I can open the device without destroying it, haven't tried. The power runs all the time as long as the USB cable is connected, but it's only a Serial-USB converter.
- throwaway8451 4y agoI can vouch for that. A friend built one of these and since it worked really well, so I and some others built five more last year. Make sure to put a piece of window screen over the openings of the tube to keep insects and spiders out. If you have enough dexterity, you can even hide the screen inside the opening of the tube to make it less unsightly.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoHow does this compare to something like an Airgradient, which you can put together for like $50? More detail about what constitutes the PM2.5 or PMn particles you're measuring?
- ggm 4y agoLarge scale data collection like this is good stuff. Sure, it can look like data for data's sake, but the downstream modelling from streetscape PM2/2.5 distribution into how it gets into people is there. NO levels need to be collected alongside PM2 and CO/CO2. That stuff is really bad for you. Insane amounts of inner-city schools without Air conditioning depend on open windows, kids sitting inside all-day next to busy streetscapes with diesel trucks roaring by. We know what this does to people.
- WWLink 4y ago> Insane amounts of inner-city schools without Air conditioning depend on open windows, kids sitting inside all-day next to busy streetscapes with diesel trucks roaring by. We know what this does to people. The surburbian schools I went to as a kid didn't have air conditioning, just a line of windows in the back of the room that were always open during the spring & summer, and a line of windows in the front near the ceiling, that were also open on hot days. AFAIK most of those schools were remodeled in the 2000s. They added air conditioning and nobody opens the windows anymore. That's great on a hot day, but man I really liked the fresh air on days with nice weather.
- ggm 4y agoMy son's school was built in the inner city Brisbane streetscape in the 1920s in a time of low car density. Once we vehicled up, it was sitting between two day long constant flows of cars, buses and trucks. I believe it was also the first public school in Brisbane south of the tropics to get air-conditioning (Qld used to manage the economics of the problem by defining a climate boundary to limit the cost) I get that "fresh air is best" and we kind-of also got that in covid times, its important to replace the air in a closed space. I like fresh air too. The problem is, what "fresh" is. If you sit at a window above the garbage bins, for the first 10-20 minutes you know what people had for dinner. After your nose shuts down you tune it out, but those particles didn't stop winging it from the prawn heads into your breathing tract. We can't easily tell we're breathing in diesel particulate matter and like, unless you happen to walk by an airport at the right time to get a whiff from a passing jet, but the fine matter is there, smelt or not. I sometimes think that wheezy asthmatic non-sports kid down the back of the class is the canary in the coal-mine: if they're having a bad day, actually everyone in that room might be. For the first year of my new Apt, every time we came back in from shopping we got a whiff of a lovely "new house smell" -the complex VOCs include the formaldehyde in the construction materials out-gassing. That stuff isn't good for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_car_smell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_car_smell
- thewanderer1983 4y agoFor those wanting a cheaper version that is small and works great. I've been using this for a while at home. It integrates nicely with home assistant. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sniffer-air-quality-sensor-using-esp32-with-lcd-pmsa003-bme680/226870 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sniffer-air-quality-se... https://github.com/kylemanna/sniffer https://github.com/kylemanna/sniffer
- alexeldeib 4y agoHadn't heard of that but built something similar by adapting tutorials from adafruit for their microcontrollers, lcds, air quality sensors, starting with https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-trinkey-qt2040 https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-trinkey-qt2040
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- louison11 4y agoThis is a DIY open source air quality monitor starting from $67, a lot cheaper than what the article mentions: https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ Been geeking out on AQ (air quality) lately and it’s fascinating. Market is very messy though. Few options with huge price discrepancies. Ultimately it looks like the sensors inside the fancy $300+ monitors cost a few dollars to acquire.
- sacnoradhq 4y agoUh.. you can just get an Arduino, LCD module, and a Plantower PMS5003 for $35. That's what I did when the air was unbreathable with an AQI ~ 900.
- throwaway09432 4y agoThe production of this gadget will create more pollution.
- ck2 4y agoIKEA hack https://style.oversubstance.net/2021/08/diy-use-an-ikea-vindriktning-air-quality-sensor-in-home-assistant-with-esphome/ https://style.oversubstance.net/2021/08/diy-use-an-ikea-vind... and of course previously on HN, airgradient DIY https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27124671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27124671 The more the better. Maybe one day built into every smoke detector. Maybe in a decade built into your phone. Another decade in your watch.
- henearkr 4y agoThey mentioned a NO2 sensor in the article, but then I don't see it in the BOM. Was it only used for the calibration? If so, that would be a shame, as I am precisely looking for an inexpensive but reliable NO2 sensor device.
- ahaucnx 4y agoWe at AirGradient maintain popular indoor and outdoor open source air quality monitoring projects [1] and gained quite a lot of experience on air quality measurement. The hard part of these projects is not connecting electronic modules and get some air quality data out of it but to ensure that the data is accurate and this is where I have some questions. The success of these kind of projects stands and falls with the trust that people have in the data it generates. 1) The built uses the Sensirion SPS30 PM sensor. As per Sensirion assembly guideline the maximum allowed air flow around the sensor is one meter per second. This corresponds to 3.6 km/h or 2.2 m/h. A car normally travels a multitude of this speed. I did not see anywhere in the built instructions how they manage the airflow inside the enclosure to be within this limit. In my opinion detailed airflow simulations inside the enclosure are essential. 2) Temperature and humidity has strong impacts on the accuracy of PM measurements and it is important that these are accounted for. This is already a challenge for stationary low cost sensors but having this sensor mounted on the roof of a car will probably give a wide vaiety of different heat exposures. I did not see how this is accounted for. 3) I am not sure if there are large advantages with mobile sensors compared to a high density stationary network of low cost sensors. Air pollution, especially on roads fluctuates a lot with peak times. So a measurmenet taken at 8am at a busy junction might be quite different a few hours later. How long do you keep past measurements valid for a certain location? I applaud all open source projects in this space and it looks like a lot of effort went into this project so it would be great if above concerns could be addressed/clarified from somebody in the team. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ [2] https://sensirion.com/media/documents/7990F04A/616544B0/Sensirion_Particulate_Matter_AppNotes_SPS30_Mechanical_Design_and_As.pdf https://sensirion.com/media/documents/7990F04A/616544B0/Sens...
- Animats 4y agoHow does this differ from every other cheap air quality meter?