Air Quality Station

Fire at Grenoble 20-11-2021 Credit: @villeofficiel

Air quality remains a global concern despite local improvements. Air pollution is one of the greatest health risks, affecting almost every organ in the body. The impacts are particularly severe for children, the elderly, and populations exposed over long periods. It is responsible for approximately 7 million premature deaths per year worldwide (WHO). This is more than malaria, HIV, and road accidents combined.

This project proposes the hardware design and the firmware of various low-cost and repairable airquality stations for citizens. Air quality measurements are transmitted over a private or public LoRaWAN network (Helium, TTN or self-hosted Chirpstack), Mesh LoRa networks (Meshtastic, Meshcore) and displayed as open data (luftdaten, opensensemap) or in private dashboard (Grafana, cayenne, thingsboard.io). The firmware is based on RIOT OS, Platform.io, Arduino, Zephyr OS, Eclipse ThreadX …

The IAQ sensors are listed here

Github repositories

Version 2026 (WIP)

The goal of the project is to develop the 2026 version of the “Air Quality Station,” which will transmit environmental measurements via the Meshtastic LoRa mesh network. Several environmental sensors are already supported by the Meshtastic firmware.

Fine particulate matter sensor Plantower PMS7003
Fine particulate matter sensor Sensirion SEN5X
CO₂ sensor
Grove Multichannel Gas Sensor v2 (CO, NO₂, C₂H₅CH, VOC)
Ambient light sensor Vishay VEML7700
Digital temperature and humidity sensor Sensirion SHT31
High-precision temperature sensor Maxim MAX30205MTA / MAX30205
Temperature sensor MAX31865 for PT100–PT1000 probes
and more

Microcontrollers will be Wio E5, Microbit (nRF52), XIAO ESP32S3 and Sensecap Solar P1 Pro.

Version 2024 (WIP)

Flipper Zero with BME680 and PMS7003

Board: Flipper Zero
Sensors:
- BME280: Temperature, Humidity, Pressure
- PMS7003: PM 1, 2.5, 10
FAP: https://lab.flipper.net/apps/airmon

Project (HW+SW)

ESP32 DevKit with BME280 and Sensirion SPS30

Board: ESP32 DevKit on TinyGS_2G4
Sensors:
- MIKROE-1978 (BME280) on Mikrobus Slot 1: Temperature, Humidity, Pressure
- Sensirion SPS30 PM Sensor on Grove I2C connector: PM 1, 2.5, 10
Connectivity: Wifi, BLE, LoRaWAN (Mikrobus RN2483 on Mikrobus Slot 0)
Firmware : RIOT OS

ESP32 DevKit + RN2483

RAK3172 with BME680 and PMS7003

Board: RAK3172 : MCU STM32WLE5
Sensors:
- BME680 : Temperature, Humidity, Pressure
- PMS7003: PM 1, 2.5, 10 (2x10 2mm header)
- LIS2DH12 : MEMS digital output motion sensor: ultra-low-power high-performance 3-axis “femto” accelerometer
- Grove connectors for UART (x2), I2C (x1), Analog GPIO (x2) and Digital GPIO (x1)
Power: MPPT for LiPo battery and solar panel (coming soon)
Connectivity: LoRaWAN, LoRa Mesh (coming soon)
Firmware : RIOT OS, STM32CubeIDE