Most people tend to avoid outdoor pollution, but indoor air quality can be just as impactful to our health. In particular, elevated levels of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less) negatively impact our cardiovascular and respiratory systems.
I live in California, and during seasonal wildfires, I keep my windows tightly shut to avoid particulate matter. But common activities like cooking and burning candles can also increase these levels in your home. And even old appliances can be a culprit.
So what can you do?
Home automation is one way to monitor and improve your indoor air quality, like with air purifiers that automatically adjust based on connected sensors that provide real-time updates on air quality. By integrating a few basic components, you can effortlessly reduce allergens, dust, and pollutants—helping you breathe easier without lifting a finger.
Three parts of a smart home system
Like other Internet of Things (IoT) systems, a smart home system typically consists of three components.
- Sensors: These are components that perceive its environment by detecting inputs. In our air quality monitoring example, we have an air sensor to detect fine particulate matter in the surrounding air.
- Actuators: These are the components that perform actions based on decisions made by the system’s controller. In our example, we have a smart plug to run a box fan air filter.
- Controller: This is the brain that processes data from the sensors and makes decisions based on pre-programmed logic, sending commands to the actuators. In this example, we can use a Raspberry Pi or microcontroller.
With these basic components, you can wire up an automated air filtration system that periodically checks the values of the air in your home, and triggers the air filter (like a Corsi-Rosenthal box) once levels of particulate matter rise above a certain threshold.
Build your own automated air filtration with air quality sensors
If you’re interested in setting up something similar in your own home or office, follow along with this step-by-step tutorial to automate air filtration with air quality sensors.
Next-level air quality monitoring
Once you create an air quality monitoring system, you can further customize it. Suggestions for next-level projects include the following:
- Modify the sensor: swap out the sensor for one that also detects temperature or humidity.
- Modify the actuator: swap out the actuation mechanism to hook into your central HVAC or trigger a notification.
- Visualize and analyze the data: visualize the sensor data or create a sensor data pipeline to run a machine learning model for further insights.
- Create a mobile app: use Viam's other SDK libraries to build a Flutter mobile app or TypeScript web app to manage the air quality monitoring system.
Build a network of sensors
You can also scale up your air monitoring system by setting up more sensors or different types of sensors.
- Fleet management: manage a fleet of air quality sensors in different rooms or different locations.
- Sensor fusion: collect and aggregate data from different types of sensors to specify the precise conditions that trigger the actuation using data management and machine learning.
- Autonomous rover: take it to the streets to track outdoor pollution with an autonomous rover.
What are you building next?
If you build your own air monitoring system, or some other helpful home automation, share it with the Viam Discord community in the #built-on-viam channel. Now is the time to automate all the things!
