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Air pollution got you choked up?

Monitor it with ISY994 + PurpleAir

“The sky of the color of ashes in the east and embers in the west.” ~ Stephen King

For Californians, wildfires are becoming more frequent and the smoke and particulate matter generated by them are a serious health hazard. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if it is safe to be outside or even just open a window?

Now you can.

Combine your ISY994 with a PurpleAir air quality monitor and you’ll have instant data to make those types of decisions.

Your ISY will have access to the air quality sensor data and the EPA Air Quality Index for your exact location.

Prerequisites:

  • ISY firmware version 5.0.15 or higher
  • A PurpleAir air quality monitor
  • An ISY Portal account or local Polyglot installation

Configuration:

With either the Polyglot cloud service or your local Polyglot, select the PurpleAir node server from the store and click the “Install” button. Assign the node server to an unused slot.

From the Polyglot Dashboard, select the newly installed PurpleAir node server Details from the dashboard and then go to the Configuration screen. Add custom configuration parameters for the PurpleAir devices you want to monitor.

Key Value
Name PurpleAir sensor ID
Name Second PurpleAir sensor ID

 

The Name is of your choosing. It simply provides a way to identify a specific PurpleAir device.

The Sensor ID is specific to a PurpleAir device.

The PurpleAir node server accesses the publicly available data from the PurpleAir servers. To monitor a device, the device must be registered with PurpleAir and must not be hidden from public view.

When the configuration is finished, the node server will start polling purpleair.com for the sensor data. You can control how often the data is polled and update using the ‘shortPoll’ advanced configuration options. ShortPoll defines how often the devices are polled and is in seconds.

Don’t just guess when the air is clean enough for you and your family to go outside or let the breeze flow through and open window during a smoke or air pollution episode. Once configured, the ISY and PurpleAir real-time air quality monitoring can help you decide when it’s safe to exercise, play or simply enjoy the outdoors. Now that’s a breath of fresh air!

If you have addition ideas for how this node server could be used, comment below.