Why I
sleep better at night with Freedom Robotics
Sleeping is
difficult to achieve. Sometimes I wake up with a headache and sore muscles,
sometimes I wake up with a stuffy nose, sometimes with dry skin, and other
times I wake up feeling great.
Why don't I
feel good every morning? As an engineer, I decided to get to the bottom of it
using data and science.
Create a
device to collect data
Research has
exposed that the quality of indoor air plays an important role in the quality
of your sleep. With that in mind, my first step was to measure the air quality
in my bedroom.
I started by
connecting a FeatherS2 microcontroller to almost every air sensor I could find:
pressure sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, electrochemical
sensors, ozone sensors, infrared CO2 sensors and particle and dust collectors.
I even
included a Geiger counter in case a truck carrying radioactive material passed
my house.
Fortunately,
every sensor I compiled used the I2C communication protocol, so connecting them
was relatively straightforward, just like housing them in a 3D printed cabinet.
My air quality monitor was finished. Its construction took a few hours of my
time and around $ 120.
My
complete DIY air quality monitor
Once I have
collected the data, how can I save and analyze it?
Next, I had
to figure out how to save and analyze the monitor data.
Enter the
Streaming tab of Freedom Robotics - the first tool we all know and love for its
ability to record, replay and broadcast robot sensor data!
Although it
was designed for robots, I knew it would provide the perfect user interface and
experience for recording and examining arbitrary sensors collected from
Internet of Things (IoT) devices like my air quality monitor. To support future
work like this, we created Micro Link, a library for publishing data from
microcontrollers running on Circuit Python or Micro Python.
Indoor
carbon dioxide levels
The air
quality monitor paid for itself after just one night of data collection. As
high CO2 levels are known to negatively affect sleep quality, I was surprised
to find my bedroom measured over 1200 ppm, easily exceeding the 1000 ppm
threshold, which is known to induce drowsiness, headaches and other damaging
symptoms. to sleep.
My solution?
Open my bedroom window at night and watch the CO2 levels drop. But how wide do
I need to open each night to maintain optimal levels without sacrificing heat?
A few days of experimentation gave me my answer.
I also
learned how quickly the CO2 levels drop when I open the windows during the
working day. Here at 2:42 p.m., you can see the levels drop from over 900 ppm
to just under 700 ppm in about 8 minutes. Every time I did this I felt
refreshed, alert, and productive. Read More beinghealthylife
Are
humidifiers working? If so, are they reliable?
Another
problem I was looking to solve was waking up thirsty with dry skin. Also, the
plants in my room weren't doing well and tended to dry out quite quickly.
I had
recently purchased a humidifier to deal with my dryness issues, but was it
working? Two sensors on my air quality monitor indicated yes.
The periodic
behavior detailed in the reading below is due to the fact that the humidifier
regularly turns off according to its set point and shortly after 10 hours it
runs out of water. When these cases happened, humidity levels began to drop to
their natural dry levels.
I also found
that the humidity levels in my room reported by the humidifier were nowhere
near what my air quality monitor was reporting.
When the
humidifier reported 57 percent, the actual levels were between 35 and 40 percent.
You would think this was due to improperly calibrated sensors, but the gap was
actually caused by the humidifier sitting in a puddle of its own mist.
