An insert with the Air Quality sensor provides Air Quality notifications and VOC multilevel sensor reports.
In addition, an “Air Quality Alert State” mechanism is supported that may be used to trigger additional notifications and reports and may be used to generate BASIC SET commands to associated nodes and/or the local device.
The sensor itself provides an air quality index value that ranges from 0 to 500 as illustrated here:
| IAQ Index |
Air Quality |
Impact (long-term exposure) |
Suggested action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-50 | Excellent | Pure air; best for well-being | No measures needed |
| 51-100 | Good | No irritation or impact on well-being | No measures needed |
| 101-150 | Lightly polluted | Reduction of well-being possible | Ventilation suggested |
| 151-200 | Moderately polluted | More significant irritation possible | Increase ventilation with clean air |
| 201-250 | Heavily polluted | Exposition might lead to effects like headache depending on type of VOCs | Optimize ventilation |
| 251-350 | Severely polluted | More severe health issue possible if harmful VOC present | Contamination should be identified if level is reached even w/o presence of people; |
The user can map the sensor index values to the four available Z-Wavetm Home Health: VOC Level Status Event “Pollution level” notification states:
- Clean
- Slightly polluted
- Moderately polluted
- Highly polluted
Air Quality Default Behaviour
The default configuration settings result in the following behaviour:
-
The sensor index values are mapped as follows:
- 0 to 100 is Clean
- 101 to 175 is Slightly polluted
- 176 to 250 is Moderately polluted
- 250 is Highly polluted
- A “Home Health: VOC Level Status Event” Notification Report will be sent to the Lifeline associations with every level transition with the “Pollution level” parameter set to identify which level is active.
- An initial notification is sent within 1 minute of power-up. This is typically a notification of “Clean” air however it provides the initial baseline for subsequent notifications.
- The device will enter an Air Quality Alert State when the VOC Level Status Event “Pollution level” reaches “Moderately Polluted” which happens when the sensor returns an Air Quality Index value of 175 (half-way into the “Moderately polluted” range as documented by the sensor).
- The device will deliver VOC Multilevel Sensor Reports every 3600 seconds (hourly).
- When in an Air Quality Alert State, the device will resend a VOC Level Status Event Notification every 300 seconds (5 minutes) (see Air Quality Renotification Delay).
- The user may then select which of the four levels represent entry into an “Air Quality Alert State”.
Air Quality Auto Control Functionality
When the insert is placed in a Swidget 20-40-60 Timer Switch, an Air Quality Auto Control feature is enabled by default to turn the host switch on when the device enters the Air Quality Alert State.
By default, the air quality configuration is set to execute a basic set command with a value of 0xFF (On) on the host device when the device enters the Air Quality Alert State and will execute a basic set command with a value of 0x00 (Off) on the host device when the device leaves the Air Quality Alert State.
The Air Quality Alert Entry SET Value parameter and the Air Quality Alert Exit SET Value parameter are used to control the values sent in the corresponding Basic Set commands.
The local switch may be operated to turn the host device off while in the Air Quality Alert State.
Since the 20-40-60 timer switch is typically used for a fan installation, this default behaviour allows the device to automatically provide poor air quality fan control ventilation functionality without the need for network add, and/or without additional configuration.
Once included in a network, the air quality configuration parameters may be changed to modify this behaviour if desired.