Home Automation: DIY Arduino vs. Airthings View Plus

Comparison of my DIY Arduino Uno DHT22 temperature and humidity IOT sensor with ESP8266 WiFi module. Up against the commercial Airthings View Plus sensor hub which can do radon, temperature, humidity, pressure, VOC, PM and CO2. This video is also a complete walkthrough of how I built the Arduino solution and how to setup the Airthings View Plus.

The Airthings View Plus sensor is sponsored by Airthings.

The Arduino Uno DIY project is mostly based on the work of Michalis Vasilakis which he made public on his website: https://www.ardumotive.com/iot-wifi-temp-and-humidity.html

Arduino Uno DHT22 and ESP8266

The original schematics from Michalis, uses the internal 3.3V supply on the Arduino Uno to supply both the DHT22 sensor and the ESP8266 wifi module. This gave me a lot of problems. The Arduino would reboot randomly and troubleshooting showed that it was the power draw from the wifi module that was too big. I needed to use a external 3.3V supply. At the time I was working offshore and only had a limited components supply at hand, hence the choice of the older L200 regulator.

If programming of the Arduino Uno fails, remember to disconnect the wifi module, before downloading. The UART USB serial bus can simply not be used by both USB downloading of software and the wifi module at the same time.

Schematics and code

ExpressPCB file for the 5V to 3.3V regulator. ExpressPCB schematic file of the system setup. A backup of the code for Arduino project, just in case that the original website disappears.

Airthings View Plus

This sensor can do radon, temperature, humidity, pressure, VOC, PM and CO2 measurements. It connects via wifi to the Airthings cloud solution (you need to sign up for an account, its free). Data can be viewed either in the smartphone app or at https://dashboard.airthings.com.

Conclusion

A Arduino Uno with a DHT22 sensor and ESP8266 wifi module is a very versatile solution that can do whatever you want it to do. There is no limits to more sensors, more integrations and actually controlling something directly from it. It does however require that you invent everything yourself or find shared solutions on the Internet. All risks in data integrity, stability and maintenance is in your own hands.

A Airthings View Plus sensor hub is packed with the most common air quality sensors. I consider it a challenge to make a DIY solution that would not end up costing the same! The setup, integrations and open API/interface is a huge plus for me. The Airthings dashboard is not as customizable as I would like it to be. I would love to see stackable graphs, so you don’t have to pull in single graph cards for each type of measurement.

Price to features/time invested makes me call out the View Plus as the winner, when compared to my own Arduino solution. Which has more to do with my time invested in the project, than the technology itself, but I consider it a fair point that would be valid for most people.