Isn't it time we open the window?

In each office, sooner or later the question arises, indicated in the title of this article. And almost always the discussion of this issue flows into a heated debate between those who are blowing and those who are unbearably hot. In our office, I even repeatedly observed situations when employees were looking for a new place for themselves where to land in order to avoid deficiencies of air conditioners, for example. To get out of this situation and at the same time do not quarrel with anyone, you must have remarkable communication skills or use an external judge. About him we would like to tell you.



My article will be about the device, which has already been previously described on habr'e geektimes. This is a carbon dioxide detector, CO2 detector or CO2 monitor. Call it what you want. I'm not going to sell it to you, this task is better solved by the device page on the dadget site . But to talk about the experience of use - it is with great pleasure. Actually, this detector is an excellent independent judge in the question “whether to open the window?”.
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Two words about the device

No matter how much I like to communicate with hints and leave incompleteness in communication, this is not the case now. Therefore, I will tell you what this device is. The carbon dioxide detector allows you to measure the concentration of this gas in the PPM value, which can be interpreted as parts per million.

What does PPM mean, those who wish can google, or maybe a respected sergku1213 will tell us on the fingers in the comments about this value. But in principle, the decoding is more or less clear. Almost like "rubles for 1 kg." And what you need to know? You need to know the limit values: 800 ppm and 1200 ppm.





So, go to the description of the test. Armed with the device, the enthusiasm of our colleagues, we connected it to the power supply. As usual, they began to watch the instruction without using it. The failure was at that moment when one of the colleagues said, and let us breathe on it. Lag at the device was pretty decent. Therefore, nothing happened immediately, but soon the device began to show the maximum mark “HI” and turn red.

It is worth noting that there really are problems with stuffiness in the office. And we immediately took what was desired. “Yes, we are very stuffy.” “We urgently need to write to the technical department that serves the building,” etc. The device did not want to reduce the readings, and it was decided to check it in fresh air.

Then the first minus of the device appears. No own power source. No problem. In the IT company there will definitely be a power bank. In general, before lunch we tried the device on the street on the playground, surrounded by trees and in the absence of established machines.





By this moment, we have already realized that there is a lag in the measurements and you should not breathe on it all the same. Armed with this knowledge, I began to measure calmly from morning to evening.

In the morning, as expected, the device showed values ​​close to the minimum, about 400-500. Before dinner I did not roll over it even once, but after dinner I already had to use the air conditioner. Our window is just at the top and opens somehow cunningly, not manually. Therefore, from the possible options - only condo.

He coped well with his task. Moreover, the CO2 level decreased both in the cooling mode and in the ventilation mode.

What is at home?

There are fewer people at home, so during the day, opening and closing the window, the device squeaked just a couple of times. In general, there are no problems with air at home. Is that in the morning. My wife and I decided to check the air on weekends in the morning, when the window was open all night and when it was closed. The results were obvious.

With the window closed, the readings were in the red zone. When open - almost like on the street. The whole thing was measured in a room of 18m2. If you count, then, probably, for 100 squares it will be irrelevant to close the window.

Detector capabilities

It is very easy to use the device. Stuck in power, he warmed up for 5 seconds and everything, readings are available. There is an indicator of three states. Comfort (green), can ventilate (orange) and urgently air (red).



States, by the way, customizable. Those. if your rate is up to 1000, you can shift the border to 800 to 1000. The same can be done with the other values. There is also a reset to factory settings, sensor calibration and setting the altitude above sea level.

6-hour metering charts

If you look closely at the detector page on the website of the Dadget, you can find the section "For the curious." This section presents the programs with which you can access the sensor readings from a computer. Basic features: sensor readings in real time, recording the results on the graph, uploading readings to csv. Opportunities, bugs, etc. I will not describe. I will attach several screenshots with comments under the shortcut and share some statistics.

The measurements were carried out for approximately 7 hours with a lunch break. At the beginning of the day, the air conditioner was not used, the window was ceiling, and therefore it is always closed. Outside it was quite warm, about 25 degrees and sunny. First, some statistics on the measurement results.

Ugly sign

Beautiful schedule

disadvantages

• There is no power source. The device depends on an external power source. At home I measured from the outlet, at work from a usb-laptop, on the street through the power bank.
• In delivery only wire usb / mini-usb. There is no adapter on the outlet.
• No mute sound. They sent me a device with a sound indicator, which is convenient ... but not for open space at work. He put up inflated figures on light bulbs, now he beeps, if only everything is bad. Traditional indicators are controlled manually.

findings

• At home, you need to sleep with the window open in the warm time of the day, and better in the cold. Definitely better sleep.
• If it seems to you that at work you are sore by the end of the day and your working capacity falls, then it is likely that the reason is an overabundance of CO2. But not a fact. To eliminate this assumption, it is worth buying this device. For example, at least one per office.
• Found an external expert in the issue of airing and dispute resolution. Who blows at the time of draft, you can go for a while. By experience, the index drops rather quickly. About 5 min.

Where can one buy

As usual, at the dadget store , who kindly provided a carbon dioxide detector for testing.

Readers of the site have the opportunity to buy a carbon dioxide detector with a sound signal with a 10% discount, using the code GEEKT-CO2 , which is valid 14 days from the date of publication of this article.

PS I did not read the first review article, so that there was no unnecessary influence on my thoughts and conclusions. So sorry if where repeated.