Category: low-cost

aranet: Comprehensive Environmental Monitoring for a Healthier Home

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

In an era where indoor air quality and environmental safety are of a high importance, aranet has emerged as one of the leaders in providing reliable and intuitive monitoring solutions. See The Air has thoroughly reviewed several of aranet’s innovative products, each designed to empower individuals with crucial insights into their living spaces. From carbon dioxide levels to radon gas and even radiation, aranet offers peace of mind through precise and accessible data.

Most aranet monitors stand out by providing a holistic view of your environment, often including temperature, relative humidity, and atmospheric pressure alongside their primary measurements. This multi-parameter approach helps users understand the interplay of various factors affecting their indoor comfort and health.

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Key Insights from ASIC 2025 in Thailand: Bridging the Indoor-Outdoor Divide

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

The recent Air Sensors International Conference (ASIC) 2025, held in the vibrant backdrop of Thailand, offered a profound opportunity to delve into the evolving landscape of air quality monitoring. As an attendee, several key themes emerged that highlight both the progress made and the remaining challenges in our quest to understand the air we breathe.

The Indoor-Outdoor Air Quality Discrepancy

One striking observation from the conference was the apparent disparity in research emphasis between indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring. While outdoor environments have benefited immensely from the widespread adoption and scrutiny of low-cost air quality monitors, indoor spaces appear to lag in comparison. The primary reason for this imbalance lies in the availability of robust reference instrumentation. Governments worldwide have invested in publicly air quality stations equipped with reference-grade instruments, providing invaluable benchmarks for normalization and validating low-cost sensors in a variety of outdoor conditions. This has not only accelerated the development of accurate low-cost monitors but also fostered the creation of sophisticated correction algorithms.

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Review: µCritAir Development Kit – Gamifying Our Way to Better Indoor Air

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

For years, I’ve been advocating for the integration of gamification into everyday tools to drive meaningful behavioral change, especially concerning something as vital yet often invisible as indoor air quality. We need engaging ways to keep people motivated to understand and improve their environments. So, when I encountered the µCritAir (it actually found me), I was immediately intrigued. This isn’t just another air quality monitor; it’s an experiment in engagement, using a digital pet – a µCritter – whose health depends directly on the air you breathe. Keep your air clean, and your critter thrives. Let it worsen, and its health suffers. It’s a compelling, tangible connection between data and consequence.

Development Kit

It’s important to set expectations correctly: the µCritAir is currently available as a Development Kit. This isn’t a polished, mass-market product yet. Instead, it’s aimed squarely at enthusiasts, early adopters, and tinkerers who enjoy being part of the development journey. Yes, this means you’ll encounter some unpolished aspects, perhaps a bug here or there, or features still under active development. However, this is also its strength for the right audience. The team behind µCritAir is clearly passionate and actively working on both software and hardware improvements. They genuinely value the feedback from their early users, creating a collaborative dynamic that’s exciting to be a part of.

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Personal Exposure: Tracking Air Quality with Portable Monitors – 6 Months

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

This article documents my personal experiment tracking air quality exposure for 6 months using two portable, low-cost monitors: one for PM2.5 (particulate matter) and the other for CO2 (carbon dioxide). The experiment aimed to gain insights into personal exposure levels and understand the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on air quality.

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Review: M5Stack K131 AirQ – All in One Portable Air Quality Monitor

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

The M5Stack K131 AirQ is an all-in-one air quality monitor designed for easy and comprehensive monitoring of your environment. It is a portable air quality monitor and an ideal companion for those who want to track their exposure to environmental pollutants.

Characteristics

Pros:

  • Multi-sensor: It goes beyond basic temperature and humidity readings, offering detailed readings on PM1.0,PM2.5, PM4, PM10 particles, VOCs, NO2, and CO2 concentration. This gives you a holistic view of your air quality.
  • E-ink display: The easy-to-read e-ink display provides clear visuals of the monitored metrics, even in low light conditions. Even in a power outage, the last screen will still be visible.
  • Versatile mounting: LEGO mounting holes, magnets, and detachable hanging ears offer various installation options for different environments.
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Are Low-Cost Sensors Random Number Generators?

Sotirios Papathanasiou5 Comments

Low-cost sensors aka LCS are commonly used in an effort to measure air pollutants like particulate matter all around the world, indoors and outdoors. Their low price has driven a lot of interest from many communities. Academics, experts, and consumers have embraced them because they are cheap to get and easy to embed in an IoT solution.

Countless air quality monitors use low-cost sensors (mostly from China) and although they are great as educational tools, their low accuracy leads to wrong conclusions most of the time.

Wrong conclusions are as bad as misinformation or fake news. Air pollution doesn’t kill instantly (most of the time) and it doesn’t create severe health issues in the short-term, but after an extended period or at least when we notice the consequences. One exception is carbon monoxide (CO) as it can kill people instantly and this is the reason we don’t see many low-cost CO sensors. There are some regulations that protect the consumers. Moreover, companies don’t want to take responsibility by using a low-cost CO sensor because they can get sued easily by the family of a victim when the air quality monitor won’t notice the increase of the gas indoors. Liability!

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Outdoor Air Quality Monitors 2023Q4

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

What’s new? Well, some clean up of discontinued monitors and some updates. In this list you will find ambient air quality monitors for experts who want to supervise and monitor air pollutants in cities and industrial sites, and commercial outdoor air quality monitors for homeowners who want to check the air quality outside their houses/apartments. 

Air pollution can cause a range of health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and even premature death. By monitoring ambient air quality, governments and individuals can take steps to reduce exposure to harmful pollutants and protect public health.

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Low-Cost Sensors, Do They Hold Up To The Hype?

Sotirios Papathanasiou3 Comments

Low-cost sensors have helped communities see the air quality, but experts are still debating whether data are accurate or not. In many cases, monitor manufacturers have to turn to data manipulation in order to get accurate results, but it is time to step up by deploying better sensor technology.

The technology exists and we should take advantage of it as soon as possible. Almost always, the first thing I am asked about sensors is how accurate they are. Well, this question has a very tricky answer. In many cases, we measure accuracy by comparing a low-cost sensor with a reference monitor, which worths thousands of dollars. However, the comparison is not always fair. For example, if the XYZ company sends their monitor for evaluation during a high humidity season then unless they have a heater or dryer at the inlet to remove humid droplets of water from the samples before measurement then the results from the correlation would be catastrophic.

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Review: Canāree by Piera Systems

Sotirios Papathanasiou6 Comments

This is a quick review of the Canāree. An indoor air quality monitor that you can carry around thanks to its compact size.

Specifications

  • 7-Bin Optical Particle Counter Sensor (PM1.0/PM2.5/PM10)
  • Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)
  • Temperature Sensor
  • Humidity Sensor
  • Air Pressure Sensor
  • USB-A
  • WiFi Module
  • RGB LED AQ Indicator
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Review: Senstate Urban Air Quality Station

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I was given the chance to review an air quality monitor from a European company that is located in one of the most contaminated countries with the highest concentrations of particulate matter − the notorious pollutant which causes premature deaths and many illnesses.

Each year during the cold winter months, Bulgaria has the highest PM2.5 concentrations of all EU-28 member states in urban areas (I have the chance to experience it in person in Sofia). The reason is wood and coal burning. Senstate Technologies SC is a Bulgarian company with experience in the field of environmental issues.

The Senstate Urban Air Quality Station is a versatile and configurable air quality monitor with cutting-edge technologies on board, I will give you more information about it in a hot minute.

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