Airthings sensor installation
- Julie Isebaert
Difficulty: novice
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you’ll be able to:
Prepare your environment to start using Airthings
Install Airthings
Verify correct installation of Airthings
Airthings comfort sensors gather data on Humidity + CO2 + Temperature.
Find here the checklist for installation: Checklist hardware on-site visit or installation.
View Plus
Prerequisite: Gateway
Airthings connect to their own proprietary hub. Make sure you install your Airthings hub before installing the sensors (check out Airthings gateway installation for more information).
Hardware & Network Requirements
For Airthings hub to connect to the cloud, there is no need for ports to be opened on the network.
Unboxing
Airthings Wave Plus or Wave Mini or View Plus
AA batteries (pre-inserted)
Double-sided tape (depends on devcice type)
Sensor Installation
Install the Airthings sensor devices
Where you would like to measure the air quality (<50m2)
Within range* of the HBS Hub (The Hub can only manage up to 25-30 HBS Wave devices)
At a height of 1.5-1.70m (Breathing Zone)
With a screw (if necessary) or the included 3M adhesive (flat surface)
Avoid placement in proximity to
Large metal objects/cabinets
Doors or Windows
Ventilation systems
Sources of heat (i,e radiators) or humidity (i.e. Showers)
Outer Walls
Set up Airthings devices
Bring the sensor device to the room you want to monitor with the battery tab still inserted.
Remove the mounting bracket at the back of the sensor device. The bracket is magnetic-attached to the device
Pull the battery tab to power the device. The device will start connecting to the nearest Hub. If the device is moved to a different room reinsert batteries to reconnect to the nearest Hub.
Locate Serial Number and Device ID at the back of your device
Indicate on the sensor plan or fill in the prepared excel to communicate Serial Number, Device ID and location to your Spacewell Implementation Consultant.
Repeat the steps for each of the devices that needs to be set up.
Good to know
A Smartlink will be established between a powered-up sensor device and a nearby powered-up Hub. It take 20 minutes to establish such Smartlink.
It takes additionally 5 to 10 minutes for sensor data to be made available on Airthings dashboard. Allow for a couple of more minutes for the data to be send to the Workplace IoT Platform.
Wave devices are upgraded seamlessly in the background and you do not need to take any action in this process. Such upgrade can take up to 120 minutes for large installations.
Allow 7 days after deployment for data (self) calibration of indoor air quality sensors such as Radon, TVOC and CO2
Mount devices
Once the sensor device is confirmed in good radio range to the Hub, you can permanently mount the device.
wall-mount the device 150-170 cm above the floor
mount the device at least 1 m away from exterior walls, doors, air supply/exhausts, mechanical fans, heaters or any other significant source of heat or cold
do not mount Wave devices on the ceiling
Use the included double-sided tape for temporary installations. For permanent installations we recommend using a screw to wall-mount. Ensure that the device cannot fall onto someone or something and cause damage.
Airthings nor Spacewell do not take responsibility for improperly installed sensor devices.
Deploy sensors in Airthings Platform
Ask your Spacewell Implementation Consultant to configure Airthings sensors on https://spacewell.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KB/pages/492369.
Deploy sensors in Workplace Platform
On the back panel of the sensor, you will find the Device ID (format 293002XXXX). This is the ID to use to assign the device to your tenant and do the location mapping in Studio.
Add New Device in Studio
Go to your environment (https://studio.cobundu.com ) and log in
Select the location, where you can manually add a sensor via "Add New Device"
Manually add device through location > devices > new: location is filled in.
Select Device Type "Airthings". This will automatically link the device channel.
Enter Device ID as serial-number with all capitals (format 293002XXXX).
Enter a meaningful Device Name (eg customer_floor number_area).
Select a Location from the location tree if this is already known (automatically filled in if location was selected before adding new device).
Only applicable for Comfort sensors: Next to the already selected (main) Room or Workplace, you can visualize incoming comfort data on other, Linked Locations. Imagine having 1 comfort sensor in an open office space and you want to visualize this data on all 8 workplaces in that space: Linked Location needs to contain all 8 workplaces. (More information on Linked Locations: Live floorplan settings)
Selecting the correct Device Type "Airthings" should automatically set the Sensor Types and Channels to "Temperature, Humidity, CO2, …" (see Advanced).
For more information on how to add multiple new devices to Studio, check out Configure devices (add, remove, import, and export).
Data may take up to (max) 24h to be visible in Workplace Platform. It depends a bit on the installation: it can take some hours before the sensors connect to the gateway/hub. But within 24h, you should be seeing data.
Quality Assurance
Next step is the Quality Assurance to make sure that the whole installation and configuration of your Airthings comfort sensor was a success.
On the live floorplans (for example in touchpoints Workplace web (Go) and The Workplace App), as well as in Workplace back-end Studio’s Sensor Management, you should see values for each sensor that is linked to a location.
With a thermometer, you can benchmark the (temperature) values from the sensor. Admittedly, humidity is more difficult to check.
The screenshots in this chapter visualize the results on Live Floorplan > View Temperature/Humidity/Comfort/... (depending on the kind of sensor installed) and in Studio’s Sensor Management.
Since Airthings senors might be moved by end-users
Troubleshooting
I cannot see sensor device on Workplace Platform
Sensor devices that do not show up at all are most likely completely out of radio range of the Hub. Note that one Hub can connect to maximum 30 Wave devices. If a Hub fills up with more than 30 Wave devices, it can take up to 4 hours for sensor devices to find and connect to another HUB within radio range.
What do the radio bars mean?
Your Spacewell Implementation Consultant can check received radio signal strength for each Wave Plus device in the dashboard. With no signal bars, there is need for improvement.
With one or two signal bars you might occasionally miss some sensor data samples. If you see missing data and want to improve move the Wave Plus device closer to the Hub or bring in an additional Hub.
General
The Airthings Healthy Building Solution (HBS) Hub only works with HBS Airthings devices. Connection to consumer Airthings devices could upset your subscription and cause additional charges.
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