Air Quality - Solar Powered 433MHz Wireless Sensor - WeatherSense

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Solar Wireless Air Quality Sensor - WeatherSense

These are kits that are easy to build and require NO SOLDERING! You can do this easily with your kids. 100% SkyWeather2 Compatible.

How to Choose your SkyWeather2 Kit

Check out the buyers guide here.

For more information about WeatherSense - Tutorial: What is WeatherSense?

Cough. Hack. What is in your air? Well, what every is in your air you are putting it into your lungs. Remember the fires of 2020? The smoke from the fires in California spread over the entire western half of the United States. What is the local air quality at your house? You can find out with the new WeatherSense AQI sensor. What is AQI? AQI stands for Air Quality Index and it is a general measurement of the density and size of particulates in the air you are breathing. This sensor puts out an accurate measurement of the AQI at your house or school, so you can make the right decision of what to do on a given day. We saw values of 450 last summer using these laser sensors during the fires in California.

What is WeatherSense?

WeatherSense is an open source wireless protocol for sending information from remote sensors to your Raspberry Pi. This kit comes with the software you need to receive the WeatherSense messages using your Raspberry Pi and Software Defined Radio (SDR).

Solar Wireless Kit Contents

This is the complete kit for the Wireless Air Quality Sensor. Add ons to this kit include a SDR (Software Defined Radio) for your Raspberry Pi, a 3D Print and pre-loaded SD Card. Raspberry Pi is not included. A 3.7V LiPo Battery is not included.

The AQI Sensor Kit contains:

Mini Pro Plus Low Power Computer
433MHz Transmitter Board with Inside Antenna
HM3301 Laser Air Quality Sensor
330mA 6V Solar Power Cell
SunAirPlus2 Solar Power Controller and Data Collector
2 -20cm Grove Cables
Short USB A to USB Micro Cable
Links to Full Documentation and Assembly Instructions
Links to all Source Code

What else do you need to use these kits?

A Raspberry Pi (Pi 4B, 3B+, PiZeroW tested and work)
A Compatible Software Defined Radio (We have one in stock but you can get one in many places on the network)
3.7V LiPo Battery - See documentation for suggestions - such as https://www.adafruit.com/product/353 - if you get them off of Amazon, check the wiring most of them are wired backwards - Fully discussed in manuals. Here's a great website showing the problem: https://docs.particle.io/tutorials/learn-more/batteries/

Downloads

WeatherSense Raspberry Pi Software

But wait! There is more. The Wireless WeatherSense kits come with a full set of open source software for your Raspberry Pi. You can download the software from github.com/switchdoclabs or add-on a pre-formatted SD Card with all these goodies already on the card for a simpler experience. See downloads below.

The WeatherSense Raspberry Pi software includes:

All messages published on MQTT (topic: weathersense/#)
Installed rtl_433 433MHz open source drivers
WeatherSense open source database program - stores your data!
A dash_app ready to display and analyize your data from all the WeatherSense sensors!

The WeatherSense software supports:

WeatherSense WeatherRack2
WeatherSense Indoor T/H Sensors
WeatherSense AQI Sensor
WeatherSense Lightning Detector
WeatherSense WeatherCam (Coming soon)
WeatherSense SolarMAX2 Solar Power System and Controller (Coming Soon)

And more WeatherSense sensors on the way!

What is a Software Defined Radio?

A Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system (still with significant hardware support.)

The SDR we are using with WeatherSense is based on the powerful RTL2832U and R820T tuner, it can tune into signals from 24MHz to 1850MHz. SwitchDoc Labs has written drivers for the WeatherSense sensors and supplies the drivers to the community open source. These are all available in a pre-built SD Card image.

How It Works: Detecting Air Quality Levels with the AQI Sensor

The Laser PM2.5 Sensor (HM3301) is a next generation of laser dust detection sensor, which is used for continuous and real-time detection of dust in the air. It is an inexpensive, yet accurate, way of measuring air quality in terms of AQI,

It is very different from the older versions of dust detectors and Different from the pumping dust detection sensor, and uses a fan to drive air during sensing and the air flowing through the detection chamber is used as a test sample to perform real-time and continuous test on dust of different particle sizes in the air.

Comparing AQI Detectors (330X is our sensor)

The HM-3301 Dust Sensor is based on the advanced Mie scattering light theory. When light passes through particles with quantity same as or larger than wavelength of the light, it will produce light scattering. The scattered light is concentrated and focused on a highly sensitive photodiode, which is then amplified and analyzed by the internal circuitry. Using a specific mathematical model and algorithm you can obtain the count concentration and mass concentration of the dust particles. Very nice.

The HM3301 is composed of a fan, an infrared laser source, a condensing mirror, a photosensitive tube, a signal amplifying circuit and a signal sorting circuit.

The HM3301 is composed a fan, an infrared laser source, a condensing mirror, a photosensitive tube, a signal amplifying circuit and a signal sorting circuit.