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Use Apple HomeKit and Elgato Eve Room to Monitor The Health of the Air in Your Home

In urban living or work environments, air quality can be a factor especially when you are near common items like cleansers and disinfectants, aerosol sprays, printers, permanent markets, etc. Although your nose can usually detect and warn you about poor air quality when going into a new room, it's harder to track air quality over longer periods of time, identify the causes, and take corrective action like opening a window.

IoT based smart home automation addresses this by using sensors like the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) to monitor for air quality, temperature, and humidity, and then feeding the data through an IoT smart home platform like Apple's HomeKit. Products like the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) are the first step to then take some action based on the collected data.

To measure air quality, the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) uses MEMS sensors to measure volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are produced by human beings and animals but also materials in your wall's paint, furniture, and carpet as well as printers, copiers, disinfectants, perfumes, and tobacco smoke. Too much of there compounds could cause headaches, eye and skin irritation, and dizziness. The Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) measures VOCs in PPM or parts per million which is how volume of VOC particulates are measured in a million volumes of air.

We purchased the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) at the Apple Store in the Westfield Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, California.  

In a time where there is less and less Apple retail shelf space dedicated to non-Apple products, it was nice to see a lot of Apple HomeKit and Elgato  smart home products on display. 

The Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) box is relatively simple, and just contains the sensor, batteries, and documentation.

Like every HomeKit product, the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) contains a HomeKit code which is used to scan in and add your HomeKit device to the Apple Home or Elgato Eve App.

The Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) uses Bluetooth 4.0 Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy) rather than Wi-Fi, Zigbee, or Thread to extend its battery life. However, this means that your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV needs to be near enough to the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) in order to access it. While Buetooth Low Energy does offer impressive range for its energy consumption, this range may not be far enough in large homes and office buildings.

Make sure you use the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) only if you, your friends or colleagues have iPhones or iPads. The Elgato Eve App is only available on the Apple App Store, and can't be found on Google Play. You also need to make sure you like Apple's Siri since you can't use other voice controls like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Still in polluted urban environments and tight living spaces, having the Elgato Eve Room Sensor (2016) around is a good sanity check to get some fresh air ventilation and monitor what you and your family are breathing.