Re:IKEA made a smart air quality sensor to track indoor poll...
by peterbraden on Thursday February 16, 2023 @10:27AM
(#34819896)
The SCD40 series is a pain to calibrate - it will drift out of calibration unless it's left outside at some points. It's not ideal for consumer electronics.
Re:IKEA made a smart air quality sensor to track indoor poll...
by woefblaf123 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @10:33AM
(#34819977)
This is not unique to the SCD40 series. This applies also to NDIR based sensors. They also need to 'see' outside air on a weekly basis.
It's just the way CO2 sensing tech works.
Re:IKEA made a smart air quality sensor to track indoor poll...
by fotta on Thursday February 16, 2023 @10:40AM
(#34820082)
Not necessarily. The SCD series can have auto calibration turned off. You take it outside once and baseline that to 400ppm. The drift on the sensor is rated very low (+-50 ppm over the sensor’s lifetime). This is what I do with my SCD30.
Re:IKEA made a smart air quality sensor to track indoor poll...
by wkat4242 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @05:52PM
(#34827750)
Interesting, I didn't know that, I've only used them in auto mode. I also have SCD30s, the 40s are a pain in the ** to solder and they were hard to get because they are new.
I wonder why they don't just calibrate them off the factory line then? I mean, 50ppm is not much. In auto mode you won't get much better accuracy than that because you don't always air the house well enough to get down to 400 (let alone in a city's CO2 bubble).
Other models are laser based (NDIR) and more expensive.
There's also eCO2 which is estimated based on VOC levels and basically useless.
So in other words, adding real CO2 would increase the price a lot. At least double it (since the sensor cost isn't the only factor obviously)
This would totally change the value proposition and target market. I guess they did their research and decided against it. There's other devices that do CO2 for around $100.