AirThings Support Issues – Anyone had luck with this company?
DennisWood
| Posted in General Questions on
I’ve been using the excellent Hubitat integration for AirThings to integrate a few sensors into my HVAC automation system.
To that end I had purchased two[ Airthings Wave Plus](https://www.airthings.com/en-ca/wave-plus) sensors, and an AirThings Hub in April 2023…total of around $850. After about 4 months of reliable performance one of the sensors suddenly started reporting insanely high radon levels, and stopped reporting every two minutes to the hub with gaps in data as long as six hours. This of course makes the unit useless for HVAC automation.
Their support via chat is a bit of a joke and after being basically run around in circles for 10 days, resetting, re-pairing, swapping batteries, I am wondering if this company has the worst support ever, or I’ve just got an agent who is trying to stall resolution. Has anyone dealt with these folks successfully?
I normally would not create a post of this nature, but if this support behaviour is typical, I’d steer well clear of purchasing any AirThings product. I’ll update this post if my issue is ever resolved.
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Replies
It appears that a replacement is on it's way, although I'll admit that the process was quite frustrating with respect to timeline. I guess this is a reminder that automation (particularly with third party sensors) carries with it the need to check on on things systematically to ensure readings are within acceptable limits. Radon at 20 000 Bq/m3 is certainly not.
I'm automating HRV ventilation rates based on VOC, CO2 and Radon which has raising a few interesting points (like having stale air pickup in your basement as well as main living areas) and the impact of things like daughters with hair spray use and candles etc. on VOC levels. I'm trying to convince them to just stop using candles..not sure if the hair spray argument is going anywhere...
With AQ sensors in the basement, 1st floor and 2nd floor, it also highlights that air quality on one floor can be quite different from another. I've modified automation behaviour to average the three sensors on a few parameters, and ignoring them on others. For example, C02, and VOCs are a bigger issue on the 2nd floor, where radon is only an issue in the basement. I can see why a "one size fits all" approach may not be the ideal solution for a truly adaptive ventilation system. There is a tug of war at play between "smart" and the KISS rule.
I also use AirThings sensors for certain automations and luckily haven't dealt with any failures yet.
And I 100% sympathize with your comment about the tug of war between automation and KISS. As I increasingly have more and more rules and automations in my setup, on the one hand, it's awesome because I can go weeks or even months at a time with dehumidifiers, ventilation, air filters, etc., all turning on/off completely on their own with no intervention from me, working perfectly. On the other hand, when I notice that something is NOT working correctly, it can take ages to figure out exactly why it has stopped working correctly.
So yes, I'm still trying to reach that appropriate balance between automation and simplicity. Not sure I'll ever get there. Hah.