Author Topic: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)  (Read 5514 times)

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Offline Mandrake

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Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« on: March 22, 2019, 11:37:40 AM »
Hi Folks I thought I would share my review of the Ecowitt PM2.5 sensor I have been playing with for the last few weeks.

The device is a Fine Offset design and as such integrates with the various weather stations that one can purchase though this may depend on firmware and restrictions with the various clones. In my trial I have this paired with a Ecowitt HP-2550A (equivalent of an Ambient Weather WS-2000 for US based folks) weather station and also a Ecowitt GW-1000 which is a displayless IP logger.

The device in itself is a fairly modest in size (10lx7hx7w CM's) but feels solid in build and weight.
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As an optional extra if you don't or cant integrate it into your weather station you can purchase a small battery operated LCD display from Ecowitt.
The display has an inbuilt temperature and humidity sensor as a bonus for your side table. The display shows the instant Micrograms/M Cubed measurement and Max value. There is also a 1 hour and 24 hour reading displayed. In the middle is a coloured bar that indicates the AQI calculation based on the instant reading.
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The PM2.5 sensor comes supplied with 2 rechargeable batteries which keep the device going at night time. On the top of the sensor is a small Solar panel which recharges the batteries during the day. The sensor battery level is reported in the small monitor and also in the data sent to your phone if you use the WS-View app to look at the GW-1000 live data. In order to keep the sensor operational the sensor has a MicroUSB port in the bottom (with a supplied USB cable) which allows you to charge the device fully periodically if your local sunshine levels are low. It was suggested this should be undertaken every 20 days or so by Ecowitt. So far in my test (14 days) in the UK during springtime (approx. 12 hours daylight per day) the battery level reported still shows full and I have not felt the need to recharge via the USB yet.
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I don't have any local calibrated air quality sensors to compare with my measured values which is unfortunate though in general I have been impressed by what I have seen. For instance today the weather is settled and calm with high pressure and as a result the air quality is poor as expected. I live in a suburban area near popular schools and busy roads so this goes hand in hand with reduced air quality.
As mentioned if you have the Ecowitt Gw-1000 data logger you can upload the data from the PM2.5 sensor to ecowitt.net which stores the data on-line for your viewing and graphing etc. If you have other Fine Offset sensors and weather station kit it will capture this data as well and upload etc. allowing you to have a comprehensive place to store your weather data and graph etc
What follows is some screen snips taken from ecowitt.net covering my PM2.5 sensor data. As you can see today the AQ is moderate due to high pressure.
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Hopefully somebody will find this useful, but I have been impressed and very happy that this integrates with my weather station.
You can purchase these from ecowitt.com online direct or via Amazon.com
G1ZFO

Ecowitt HP2551A + WH65 Tri-Wing (Wunderground: IGUILDFO67)
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Ecowitt GW1000 (Mk2) test environment driving CumulusMX on a RPi 3b
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Ecowitt WH51 (x6) Soil Moisture Sensor
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Ecowitt WH32-EP (SHT35) + Davis 7714 Screen
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Offline txweather.org

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2019, 08:28:06 AM »
Thanks for your review!

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Offline bthoven

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #2 on: November 05, 2019, 09:49:19 PM »
Thanks for the review. I plan to buy just the sensor (433Mhz version) and hope the sensor data can be captured with rtl-sdr usb dongle.

Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2019, 10:10:55 PM »
Thanks for the review. I plan to buy just the sensor (433Mhz version) and hope the sensor data can be captured with rtl-sdr usb dongle.

The GW1000 you just ordered will see this PM2.5 sensor....it will see up to 4 of them.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
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Offline bthoven

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2019, 12:47:36 AM »
Thanks. You are right. I will test with my rtl_433 too because I may get the data by mqtt to display on other devices too.

Offline ALITTLEweird1

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2019, 09:40:22 PM »
Anyone know how this sensor compares to the purple air sensor?
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Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2019, 10:20:18 PM »
Anyone know how this sensor compares to the purple air sensor?

They both use very similar sensors that pretty much work and do the exact same thing. The Ecowitt sensor only is capable of 2.5 microns and 10 microns but in software by Ecowitt has been limited to just 2.5 microns. Ecowitt is using the Honeywell HPM series. The Purpleair is using the PMS series from Plantower (Chinese company). The Purpleair detects 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, and 10um and then outputs PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10. The Purpleair sensor is technically not more expensive (direct source), but Purpleair is definitely charging a premium. But the Purpleair uses two of these sensors. There is a lot more to compare and discuss. I think the bottom line is the the Ecowitt uses a great sensor and the Purpleair uses a comparable sensor but uses two and then adds some special algorithm secret sauce processing. Neither of them have what industrial PM2.5 sensors have which is a heater to get rid of water vapor that gets erroneously detected as particles.
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CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
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Offline theslydog

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2020, 08:27:38 PM »
Are there any universal weather websites that allow different AQI meters to be added to it?

Most seem to be specific to their own meter except for say PurpleAir which you can add to WU.  AirVisual seems only for AirVisual meters etc.

You can add the Ecowitt PM2.5 sensor to the Ecowitt site if you have a GW1000 or similar, but are there any other websites that it can be added to?

Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2020, 09:45:45 PM »
WU has it in their upload protocol but they don't display it. Perhaps they will in the future.

Ecowitt and Ambientweather.net are the only ones that show PM2.5 upload. I upload to about 13 different online services.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline K5GHS

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2020, 10:15:30 PM »
One thing I noticed about the one I have outside (and it was noted in the instructions) is they will see fog as pollution.  The past two days we've had 95-99% humidity here and its reflected in the readings for sure.

Would be nice if they could somehow fix that, but since it is detecting particulate in the air, I guess that shows its working properly, after all.  And having it disable or somehow recalculate at high humidity wouldn't work either when its raining instead of fog, obviously.  Just something to look at when looking at the readings.

Besides that it works really well and the little panel on it keeps the batteries up no problem, even though where I have it only has about 90 minutes straight exposure daily.  Its been through a few days without much sun and the battery is still showing full.

I should note I have the Ambient Weather version but I'm guessing its pretty similar.
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Offline WeatherEnthusiastNZ

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2020, 11:02:33 PM »
WU has it in their upload protocol but they don't display it. Perhaps they will in the future.

Ecowitt and Ambientweather.net are the only ones that show PM2.5 upload. I upload to about 13 different online services.
13 is tons! Do you mind me asking which ones?

Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2020, 11:59:30 PM »
WU has it in their upload protocol but they don't display it. Perhaps they will in the future.

Ecowitt and Ambientweather.net are the only ones that show PM2.5 upload. I upload to about 13 different online services.
13 is tons! Do you mind me asking which ones?

I upload to all of these with just the GW1000 and a Meteobridge:

Ecowitt.net
Ambientweather.net
Weather Underground
CWOP
WeatherCloud
MetOffice WOW
PWSweather
AWEKAS
Windy
Windguru
MeteoMap.cloud
MeteoAgro.net
OpenWeatherMap

... Also send data to local mySQL database for backup and for potential future data import source if new software were to become available.

Besides those 13 online services plus local mySQL database with the GW1000 / Meteobridge I also run the following software which all get data from the GW1000.
- Cumulus MX
- Weather-Display
- WeeWx

Why all that? Because each one provides a little something different in a way of looking at data or comparing neighbor stations. Besides it's fun. Learning them all makes me more knowledgeable and I can help others and I can provide feedback for improving one service and often borrowing ideas from others.

All that and no personal website....yet.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2020, 12:06:26 AM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
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Offline WeatherEnthusiastNZ

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2020, 12:06:15 AM »
WU has it in their upload protocol but they don't display it. Perhaps they will in the future.

Ecowitt and Ambientweather.net are the only ones that show PM2.5 upload. I upload to about 13 different online services.
13 is tons! Do you mind me asking which ones?

I upload to all of these with just the GW1000 and a Meteobridge:

Ecowitt.net
Ambientweather.net
Weather Underground
CWOP
WeatherCloud
MetOffice WOW
PWSweather
AWEKAS
Windy
Windguru
MeteoMap.cloud
MeteoAgro.net
OpenWeatherMap

... Also send data to local mySQL database for backup and for potential future data import source if new software were to become available.

Besides those 13 online services plus local mySQL database with the Meteobridge I also run the following software:
- Cumulus MX
- Weather-Display
- WeeWx

Why all that? Because each one provides a little something different in a way of looking at data or comparing neighbor stations. Besides it's fun. Learning them all makes me more knowledgeable and I can help others and I can provide feedback for improving one service and often borrowing ideas from others.

All that and no personal website....yet.

Thanks for that! Super helpful to know all the options out there. Great idea with the set up that you have.

Offline Sast

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2021, 04:38:29 PM »
Anyone know if the Ecowit air quality sensors will work with an Ambient weather station?

Offline WeatherEnthusiastNZ

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2021, 11:34:39 PM »
I am pretty sure that they don't.
But someone can verify that.

Offline eliteweathernz

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Re: Ecowitt WH41 Air Quality Sensor (PM2.5)
« Reply #15 on: May 18, 2021, 04:41:32 AM »
Ecowitt Sensors won’t work with Ambient Weather due to firmware and coding specific and under contract between Ambient Weather and Fine Offset the manufacturers of most ambient stations.

The contract prevents Fine Offsets subsidiary company Ecowitt and other variants of these products from selling into USA market.

Hope this answers your question :)!

 

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