Yes, it is becoming a thing! We believe sensor-to-cloud technology and open-source ethics have the power to contribute to this movement!
Although adoption has been slow, open-source HVAC could revolutionize the industry. Recently, we discovered a number of our customers are coming over from the HVAC industry, presumably engineers, who are using our wide range of environmental sensors to test and develop their ideas.
The site OpenHVAC recently came to our attention, and I think is a great starting place for understanding what all this is about. They lay their goals out as:
- Identify problems in HVAC unsolved by proprietary systems to develop solutions and promote the results for all to use.
- Syndicate the best open-source solutions that can achieve #betterHVAC outcomes for HVAC professionals & homeowners.
- Generate open-source tools, software repositories, & datasets that can be used by HVAC practitioners to improve their craft.
Some YouTubes For Your Consideration
Join the conversation on the Discord!
It turns out a lot of the breakout boards we make feature technologies that are cutting-edge in this space. Take our new Photoacoustic Spectroscopy CO2 Sensor for example. This advanced sensor provides unparalleled accuracy in measuring carbon dioxide levels, essential for optimizing indoor air quality and energy efficiency. The PAS CO2 employs a photoacoustic spectroscopy measurement system that combines narrow-band filtered IR light and a highly sensitive microphone inside the sensing cavity to measure CO2 concentrations from 0 to 32,000ppm with a best accuracy of ±(30ppm + 3%) when reading between 400ppm and 5,000ppm.
But this is just one example of us picking a cutting-edge technology from a partner and putting it on a board. We have tons of sensors to choose from:
So then you take one or more of these sensors and plug it into our DataLogger IoT, which autodetects many of our sensors, via our Qwiic Connect System. You can then pick from one of the Iot services we support. With a 2.4GHz WiFi connection, you can also send data to the cloud! The following IoT services are supported:
- MQTT Client
- MQTT Secure Client
- AWS IoT
- ThingSpeak MQTT
- Azure IoT
- HTTP IoT
- MachineChat
- Arduino IoT Cloud
Rapid prototyping is key to time-effective research and development, and SparkFun’s Qwiic Connect system simplifies the process for HVAC developers. This plug-and-play system eliminates the hassles of soldering, allowing researchers to focus on their projects and new ideas. By connecting sensors together with Qwiic, SparkFun enables HVAC developers to iterate and test their ideas swiftly and efficiently without compromising data accuracy.
We also think Matter and Thread have the potential to make smart home systems interoperable, which could have a big impact as the HVAC space gets IoT-ified. Be an early adopter by checking out this shameless marketing plug for our Thing Plus Matter Board – MGM240P.
So, What Now?
Obviously, we are new to all of this and have a lot to learn! Consider filling out this form if you want to hop on the bus with us. Also, if you are already an Engineer/Developer in this space and have projects you want to share, we’d love to hear from you! If you sign up, we’ll send you some neat updates on new sensors and technologies, as well as some of the open-source HVAC projects we make and find around the web.
If you think this is great or stupid or whatever, let me know in the comments ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )
