[feature request] air quality sensors

Vincent_The_Staat · December 12, 2021, 8:10pm

Hey there HE Staff,

I have to say, I love sensors for automation and I would love to add some more variety. Especially what I was thinking about are some more air quality sensors, like dust particles, O2, and VOC sensors. This would be especially nice to create specific safety rules (in case of VOCs) or just to trigger an air cleaner (dust particles).
Pleeeeeeease?!?

neonturbo · December 12, 2021, 8:14pm

air quality sensors

Such as???

Do you have more specific recommendations of devices that are commonly available, yet missing in Hubitat?

Vincent_The_Staat · December 12, 2021, 8:17pm

I'm not talking about specific devices, but the possibility of the HE to understand those values. Right now, you can trigger rules based on humidity, CO and CO2 levels, temperature etc.. I would love to have the possibility to trigger rules using the parameters, mentioned above.

neonturbo · December 12, 2021, 8:25pm

Cant you use the "custom attribute" to do so, at least in Rule Machine?

Sure it would be nice to add these natively, but there becomes the problem of adding complexity to the various apps, and the sometimes non-standard attributes of these type items.

Vincent_The_Staat · December 12, 2021, 8:31pm

You are absolutely right, and I didn't had that in mind.

Still, would be a nice to have, especially to be able to add those to your Dashboard.

bertabcd1234 · December 12, 2021, 9:33pm

You can use the "Attribute" template on Dashboard to get a custom (or stock, for that matter) attribute to display.

Vincent_The_Staat · December 12, 2021, 9:51pm

Ok, then my request shall be ignored. I honestly had no idea.

neonturbo · December 12, 2021, 10:00pm

I do think there is merit to this request, especially when it comes to dashboards and adding this to say HSM where you could use this for similar things as smoke detectors. For dashboards it would be nice to have a template that "lights up" red for a warning when the value exceeds some defined limit or green when good.

The workarounds listed work, but having things easier or have more features are always welcome.

1449smarthomeautomat · December 12, 2021, 10:35pm

I'm looking for the same. I've done the research on a couple devices and nothing that checked all the boxes.

Amazon has a device that starts shipping dec 22. I have one on pre-order Introducing Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor – Know your air, Works with Alexa– A Certified for Humans Device Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor . What does it do? I don't know; the description is pretty tight vested, but my guess is it will evolve over time with only basic functionality at launch. I plan to beat on it as soon as it comes in and see what I can get out of it. I have smart air filters that I'd like to trigger off air quality measurements.

Vincent_The_Staat · December 13, 2021, 1:07pm

Same for me. That's why I started with Tasmota, so that I can build one on my own. Especially looking at the different sensors modules, you can easily build a multi sensor for a really low price, with more functionality than the commercial pendants. Using Tasmota in and of itself is also really simple. I was able to get things running on the first try and I have basically no idea, what I'm doing (no IT background, no knowledge of programming etc.). What I'm missing right now is the driver for all the sensors I would like to include. The old driver from Markus isn't supporting Tasmota 10 (current version) and doesn't include all the sensors I like. I'm trying to get into Groovy right now, so I can build it myself.