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Comment by heybrendan | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting!

How does the Dylos 1100 Pro compare to, for example, the Nova SDS011 sensor? By my cursory review, the SDS011 is much cheaper and appears to offer a more native Raspberry Pi-compatibility experience.

Is the Dylos more precise? Can it produce readings the SDS011 can't? Are the two sensors measuring fundamentally different things?

Finally, if you had to do it all over again, would you choose a different sensor or stick with the Dylos?

Thanks for sharing your project and for your insights!

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SDS011 is the basis for luftdaten.info; have a look here for a diy guide (optionally including humidity/temperature as well): https://luftdaten.info/en/construction-manual/

Hi, this is an interesting project. It seems to be targeted for outdoor measurements. Do you know if this also suitable for indoor measurements (meaning if you want something for indoor air quality, would you measure the same things?)

I recently watched a video from dhh (https://youtu.be/MRqh8oLY7Ik) about air quality at home and was thinking if there was a nice diy solution for measuring it.

I bought the Dylos almost 5 years ago. At that time I don't think the SDS011 was available.

A cool feature of the Dylos is monitor mode. It wakes up every hour, spins the fans for 1 minute, and spits out a measurement. It's convenient for 24/7 monitoring because it reduces fan noise and dust accumulation. I don't know if the SDS011 offers something similar, or if you could somehow program that yourself, but that may be something to consider.

I'm very happy with the Dylos overall. In addition to being 5 years old, mine has been running in monitor mode for the past year and a half with no issues so far so I really can't complain about reliability. Issues are size, fan noise, antiquated UI, and also antiquated connectivity, although I personally enjoyed working with serial (threw me back to early Duke Nukem LANs before we moved to IPX). I wouldn't be surprised if there are superior alternatives today, at least regarding usability.

The SDS011 with firmware from luftdaten.info seems to work in this mode by default: sensor is turned on for 20 seconds for measurement at every 150 seconds interval. This should be tunable though. The theoretical lifetime is 8000 hrs of continuous operation, so they estimate 6-7 years longevity in this default mode.

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