impactoz
Full Member
Posts: 142
Raspberry Pi: Yes
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Post by impactoz on Aug 22, 2019 5:33:20 GMT -8
Somehow just returning numbers from a sensor, just does not cut it for me.... Its meaningless and has no WAF (Wife Approval Factor) and we should always strive for a good WAF.
So what does the Grove Air Quality Sensor mean in its numbers - how do I know if its safe... good or really bad out there...
I would like to show / display / tell the story in words... There is a UV Index, which documents ranges of Low, High, Extreme - and that's great... but for this sensor, what is acceptable and what is not ?
I have searched and found a few raspberry pi projects that do something similar, maybe with slightly different sensors, but they look the same - and some have a dashboard say Good Air, through to Extreme conditions - so what ranges do they use on the values returned in the sensor...
A few references like;
But what can you tell me about this sensor, its detection values, and anything I can use that is in English - easy to understand - simple laymans terms, greet feedback... ie. How do I make this thing useful!
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 22, 2019 6:32:03 GMT -8
What I understand, the dust sensor gives you the PM2.5 data that you mention above. However, it defaults to a american data type (AQI)... I'll be using the µg/m3 in my weewx db instead.
Looking at the read_AQI() in DustSensor.py, there you have the raw value (particles / 0.01 ft3), which is first turned into ugm^3 and then into AQI.
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 22, 2019 6:33:38 GMT -8
Somehow just returning numbers from a sensor, just does not cut it for me.... Its meaningless and has no WAF (Wife Approval Factor) and we should always strive for a good WAF. I think you mean HAF? H as in husband? |
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Post by SDL on Aug 22, 2019 15:28:35 GMT -8
WAF is important to me. HAF is not so important to WAF.
BP
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 22, 2019 22:09:22 GMT -8
HAF is crucial. How else do get him to help with the weather proofing and putting the weather rack on the roof... Good thing he was so critical regarding outside power supply to Sky Weather so I was forced to go for the solar option  |
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Post by SDL on Aug 24, 2019 7:11:28 GMT -8
HAF made a good decision. The solar option gives you a whole bunch more data to play with. Here, WAF is being critical of my big test Solar Panel for the SolarMAX development. I put one up at my house. 100W. Magic. But big. BP  |
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impactoz
Full Member
Posts: 142
Raspberry Pi: Yes
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Post by impactoz on Aug 25, 2019 4:55:32 GMT -8
So AQI is what I need.... but I was asking about verbose words in a range to make it easier to read - and now with some google research, I found it...
BUT
Here it is where it gets interesting....
In the USA the range appears to be;
0 to 50 Good
51 to 100 Moderate
101 to 150 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups
151 to 200 Unhealthy
201 to 300 Very Unhealthy
301 to 500 Hazardous
But here in Australia - we use;
0 - 33 Very Good (Air quality is considered good, and air pollution poses little or no risk.)
34-66 Good (Air quality is considered good, and air pollution poses little or no risk.)
67-99 Fair (Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a health concern for very sensitive people.)
100-149 Poor (The air quality is unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as people with lung disease or heart disease. The general population is not likely to be affected.)
150-199 Very Poor (Everyone may begin to experience health effects, especially those from sensitive groups.)
200+ Hazardous (Everyone may experience health effects. The AQI only reaches this level during major bushfires or dust storms.)
SO much for International Standards... But eh... so lucky to live in Australia where in this instance the government appears to look after us a little more....
I will be coding to the Aussie Standard....
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 25, 2019 6:40:29 GMT -8
Are you sure the AQI calculations are an international standard? I've come across a weewx plugin that supported different ways of calculating the AQI values. That suggests that the calculations differ per country or maybe content, which would also mean that the values above might not be interchangeable. If the SkyWeather calculates according to an american standard, then maybe the values should be interpreted with the american ranges? The weewx plugin I'm referring to might give more information: weewx-aqi |
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Post by SDL on Aug 25, 2019 13:04:43 GMT -8
Yes, we are using the American standard. Sounds like we will have to dig into this.
BP
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 25, 2019 22:22:52 GMT -8
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impactoz
Full Member
Posts: 142
Raspberry Pi: Yes
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Post by impactoz on Aug 26, 2019 0:00:15 GMT -8
That's an interesting read... For me - Im just going to stick with the Australian figures I found - Doubt I will ever see anything in the extreme ranges often - Im just looking for words like Good, Poor, etc (and shall introduce the new WAF acronym NAF - Naighbours Acceptance Factor - as I am sure a few neighbours will be monitoring my output).
It is really not uncommon for countries to do different things... the last few years my IT work has been in Health and Safety... When we get into Occupational Health, Industrial Hygiene - many countries will have higher and lower acceptable limits for lead, radiation, chemical presence in a workplace. Typically Australia is much more regimented in having tighter / better standards when compared to the US, many places in Europe are a lot tighter still...
Its a complex area, and while there may be international standards in place, a lot of countries will still set their standards even better than what is prescribed... And of course a lot of other countries (Asia / South America will be the opposite and what they believe is allowable you would not want to be there!).
It was certainly a very interesting project across 62 countries... and not one country would always have the best setup...
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wolf
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by wolf on Aug 26, 2019 2:30:43 GMT -8
impactoz, I don't think you are not getting my point... Let's compare with temperature.
Both Australian and Sweden use degrees Celsius, so 30 degrees = 30 degrees. Still we might have very different interpretations of an extreme temperature. However, 30 degrees Fahrenheit != 30 degrees Celsius...
My point being: comparing air quality in AQI is just like comparing temperature in degrees. As long as the AQI values are calculated the same, you might have different interpretations, but if they are calculated different you will need to do some conversion...
According to my link above (just one website thou), it doesn't seem to be that way (look at the pictures: µg/m3 => AQI => color).
Your approach would mean you are saying that 30 Fahrenheit (= -1 Celsius) is warm weather...
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Post by SDL on Aug 26, 2019 9:03:27 GMT -8
BTW, anybody having problems with using testDust.py make sure you start pigpiod before running the test!
BP
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