Winter holidays are here and after a long time I am back in Greece to spend them with my family. Unfortunately the crisis has affected the air quality here too.

Fireplaces: Huge problem because most houses choose them as a heating source, so they burn wood nowadays. Previously they were burning oil but its price climbed up and people tured to wood. PMs inside houses are on high values 20-40μg/m3. The threshold is below 25μg/m3. Outside values are high too with similar values of 18-38μg/m3.

Smoking: One more time Greek people disappointed me with the way they decide to behave in interior places. They smoke everywhere like in cafes, in restaurants etc. There is a law that prohibits that but they don’t follow it at all. How can we make people understand that this is a toxic air? It isn’t about them only but for all the people around them that they choose not to smoke like non smokers and kids. They are so proud smoking inside. Socialy is still something cool in Greece I guess. I asked some friends what will happen if I raise my voice. Will I find justice or will they throw me outside the places? Sadly the answer was that probably they will think I am crazy.

Cars: Yes there was a big scandal about some automobile companies that made-make car that pollute air beyond any consideration but that hasn’t affect how people think and move. People love Cars and traffic apperantly too.

Agricultural Fires: Through my trip from Sterea Ellada to Peloponeso farmers all over the countryside were burning unwanted material, from plastic to wood. I was hopping to breathe some pure air but that wasn’t the case on that trip. I know that there is a law that prohibits that action but I guess people don’t care.

If you are aware about air quality, a wearable device like TZOA is absolutely necessary in case you want to find places with good air quality in Greece or on the rest of the planet Earth.

Both devices are equipped with the basic home-environment sensors.

• Temperature sensor
• Humidity sensor
• VOCs sensor
• CO2 sensor
• Particular Matter sensor.

Carbon Dioxide:

Foobot features all the above sensors except the CO2 sensor, it calcualtes the CO2 through an algorithm and the VOCs sensor which doesn’t make it very accurate. Awair has a dedicated sensor for the CO2 which makes it a winner in this category. Both devices display the CO2 in parts per million (ppm) values.

Volatile Compounds:

Foobot can measure and display the VOCs in parts per billion (ppb) values which make it perfect if you want to have precision into your measurements. Awair from the other hand can display the VOCs in Index values from 0 best to 5 worst. Foobot wins here (Awair could fix that with a simple app upgrade).

Particular Matter:

Foobot measures PM10 and PM2.5 and Awair measures PM10 PM2.5 too. Both measure them in μg/m³. They use  exactly the same Sharp dust sensor, but the readings I get are different!

Temperature/ Humidity:

I had the devices side by side for a week and they always had different indications for temp, humidity and CO2. As you can see on the pictures below.

 Both companies claim that they have tested the devices into a chamber.

Connectivity:

Foobot so far works fine via WiFi network WPA2. Awair has had some trouble staying connected, it looses the connection time to time. Awair features Bluetooth but it is only useful during initial connection with your phone (they told me that they are working to fix the wifi issue).

UI/UX:

Both devices have a unique interface. Foobot history browser is far more advanced and it can remember measurements for a long time although they need to design it a little more intuitive. Awair can’t display the history far from 24h but the main screen is friendlier and easier for the simple user to understand.

Conclusion:

Some of the features can be enchaned during time because they are software based. As a result, for the moment the scores are:

• Awair 5/6
• Foobot 5/6

After all the problems that I had in my bedroom (Part1) (Part2) with air quality I want to share some conclusions and tips.

First of all I placed next to the AQI device a snake plant as I’ve already mentioned. It can suck some of the VOCs in the air but not in a high rate, so don’t wait that it will suck up all the pollution inside the house. An estimated rate is ∼3ppb/10min. The size of my pant is small 18cm wide, 11cm tall and with 16 tiny to small leaves (roots are actually responsible for VOCs’ absorption). The bigger the better of course.

From the other hand it can handle better the CO2 during night sleep, before the snake plant the CO2 readings could reach easily +3500ppm but after the snake plant the CO2 readings are about -2800ppm. Yes I know they are quite high but during night time, windows are close.

The Window is your true friend but trust it with wisdom. Which means that you have to open the window if you want to renew the air and get rid of the VOCs and the CO2 but make sure the air outside is better. It actually doesn’t need to be open for a long time 10-20min per session, 3-4 times per day during winter. In summer I personally leave some windows always open.

As always stay tuned.

 

Last week I decided to move my foobot in my bedroom mostly to check the air quality and humidity during night. I decided to place it in front of my bed between the window and the room door and on top of a chest of drawers that I have.

I was shocked to notice that the readings were too high. At the beginning I thought it was because of the fire of the previous night (Yes, someone decided to start a fire of wood and plastic, almost next to my house I had to call the firefighters the following day because the previous day they didn’t turn it off properly and it was burning slowly all night, I was desperate for clean air). Anyway, so I thought that the air was still polluted from that but the PMs were low 5-10μg/m³ after the fire  something that I couldn’t understand at the moment. The time and the days were passing and the VOCs were still high even with the window open the quality of the air couldn’t get better below safe limits. I had to do an experiment which I did it. As a result I was monitoring the device closely and my conclusion is that the source of VOCs was the chest of drawers under the foobot. The average reading was about ∼730ppb. Yes quite shocking for a furniture.

After that I moved it next to my night stand. The experiment continues, so stay tuned.

 

Last week I had the chance of getting Foobot an indoor AQI device with PM, VOCs, CO2, Temperature and Humidity Sensors.

I have been using it since Thursday 19/11/2015, it has been great so far with many useful informations about my air quality. Firstly the device is placed in my living room and I have noticed that my lowest background levels are:

Living room lowest readings

• CO2 = 450ppm
• VOCs = 127ppb
• PMs = 0μg/m³
• RH = 60%

PMs can change rapidly when my living room stays uncleaned for 3-4 days, especially when I move a lot around (which I do) and reach values of 17μg/m³. VOCs don’t change a lot because in general I don’t use toxic products for cleaning. CO2 from the other hand can get worse when I have the living room 15m² closed for more than 2-3h and two people are inside. CO2 can reach values of 3000ppm although CO2 isn’t a threat for humans but can indicate your over all well been. Humidity is high and sometimes can reach values of 73% and for me it is hard to battle.

All these data are still under observations and more are about to come.

 

The answer is almost every time the same, Education. People don’t understand the importance of the air because simple they don’t know that exists, ignorance or non-awareness and because their eyes can’t see it yet. Schools don’t educate kids and if they do always on a basic level, mostly about water and trash.

The other day I was reading a shocking online article, it was about the people from China that they don’t seem to believe that they have air quality issues in multiply levels in their country. Those kind of articles make me wonder and make me feel scared about the future. Why the Chinese don’t understand the problem, maybe they do but they ignore it because they worry they will lose their jobs which is a possibility if you think that they are +1,401,586,609 people and all these people need to work so they can feed their families. However this problem doesn’t appear only in China, even here in Spain people are ignorance about air contamination.

Then there are the smokers, people that are willing to spend money on smoke but literally on smoke CO2 plus other gasses  just because they feel good and cool for a moment. Lack of education? Maybe yes, but also because I think we don’t evolve mentally. Of course we innovate and discover new things but our ego doesn’t allow us to see beyond ourselves and our image.

Finally we have some “great” governments that are unable to control or most of the times have a say over big companies. And why those companies don’t care? Money and greediness. Some of them even use the word “Green” to attract more clients or make their clients feel better when they buy their products.

From my point of view money and fines won’t save the world and even worse it can’t undo all the damage that they have done and they are still doing because all of those cars that are still working and emitting NOx.

Up to 40 times higher NO_x output in real-world driving. An estimated eleven million cars worldwide, produced between model years 2009 and 2015.

To find out if your vehicle is affected and has a motor EA189 you should consider:

– Using a motor 1.6 TDI with a power between 75 and 105 CV or a 2.0 TDI between 84 and 180 CV

Those are the following 43 models:

– Audi: A1, A3, A4 (family B8), A5, A6, Q3, Q5, TT

– Seat: Alhambra, Exeo, Ibiza, León, Toledo, Altea y Altea XL

– Skoda: Fabia, Octavia, Superb, Rapid, Rapid Spaceback, Yeti, Scout, Roomster

– Volkswagen: Golf, Golf Cabrio, Polo, Touran, Passat, Caddy, Scirocco, Passat CC/CC, Eos, Tiguan, Jetta, Multivan/Transporter/Caravelle/California (all from generation T5), Sharan, Amarok, Beetle, Crafter.

So my big questions are: Can we trust big corporations and governments? Do they really care about us?