LoRa Air Quality Monitor Raises the Bar on DIY IoT

Weā€™ve seen an incredible number of homebrew environmental monitors here at Hackaday, and on the whole, they tend to follow a pretty predicable pattern. An ESP8266 gets paired with a common temperature and humidity sensor, perhaps a custom PCB gets invited to the party, and the end result are some values getting pushed out via MQTT. Itā€™s a great weekend project to get your feet wet, but not exactly groundbreaking in 2022.

Which is why we find the AERQ project from [Mircea-Iuliu Micle] so refreshing. Not only does this gadget pick up temperature and humidity as youā€™d expect, but its Bosch BME688 sensor can also sniff out volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and gases such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The datasheet actually claims this is the ā€œfirst gas sensor with Artificial Intelligence (AI)ā€, and while weā€™re not sure what exactly that means in this context, itā€™s a claim that apparently warrants a price tag of $15+ USD a pop in single quantities.

Thereā€™s an AI hiding in there someplace.

But the fancy sensor isnā€™t the only thing that sets AERQ apart from the competition. Instead of a member of the ubiquitous ESP family, itā€™s using the Wio-E5, a relatively exotic STM32 package that integrates a long-range LoRa radio. [Mircea-Iuliu] has paired that with a Linx USP-410 chip antenna or, depending on which version of the four-layer PCB you want to use, a u.Fl connector for an external antenna. The whole thing is powered by a simple USB connection, and its Mbed OS firmware is setup to dump all of its collected data onto The Things Network.

All told, itā€™s a very professional build that certainly wouldnā€™t look out of place if it was nestled into some off-the-shelf air quality monitor. While the high-end detection capabilities might be a bit overkill for home use, [Mircea-Iuliu Micle] points out that AERQ might provide useful insight for those running indoor events as COVID-19 transitions into its endemic stage.



from Blog ā€“ Hackaday https://ift.tt/tl2g0sQ

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