AirGradient Forum

Airgradient One - standalone

Support
#21

The details for the Air Gradients show that a power supply is not included. This is now getting to be very common from manufacturers where a device is designed to be powered by a standard 5V supply. Also, especially for lower wattage items, people are likely to have these sort of supplies hanging around or permanent wall sockets (or pass-through mains adapters) that have USB power outputs.
Obviously, if a device is going to be on all the time (like the AG) it will need its own power supply.

It’s a catch 22 situation. If a power supply is included, then the cost of the device will be higher to reflect that. Where the required power supply is a common one, then it is probably better not to include it and let the buyer use an existing one they might have (thus saving them money) or buy one.

Buying a power supply, as has been previously mentioned in the thread, may be a problem. An alternative is for the maker (e.g. Air Gradient) to give the option of buying a power supply separately - a multi-country power supply with different plug heads means that only one type of power supply has to be kept in stock. However, because of sending from abroad, this could make the power supply more expensive than buying a decent one locally.

One advantage of both the indoor and outdoor AGs is that they’re generally not fussy as long as they can supply 5V DC at a minimum 2A or more (the measured current the AG uses is around 1.5A).

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#22

@Rog, thanks for sharing your view!

Perhaps, we should make some kind of a work-with-AirGradient power supply list that is crowd-sourced by the community? Do you guys think that’s a good idea, or will it look too much like we are influenced by the power supply company? I would just like to know your opinions.

Anyway, to me it sounds good, and I think we should do this so people have some kind of rough guide to give them an idea which one will work for sure.

Actually, I was heavily inspired as I came across a power supply tier list (for PC) weeks ago, and it seems to be very helpful for the PC building community: SPL's PSU Tier List - Google Sheets .

I think we can adopt the idea for our case (in a much smaller scale).

#23

This is the first I’ve heard of this issue for AirGradients, I have several and used a variety of 5V USB power supplies and haven’t had problems. But I have another device that is very finicky about the stability of the power supplied, so I understand where you’re coming from. I personally would prefer the option to buy rather than something included by default, since I have so many old 5V power bricks from older devices. Or perhaps a list of suggested locally available power supplies. It’s not surprising that it works plugged in to the PC, because PCs output very clean and stable USB power.

Something else for you to try is plugging into a different outlet in another part of your home. In many homes, some outlets are noisier than others, and that could be causing problems.

#24

Hi @vlotty, thank you so much for sharing your experience. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about what brand and model of the USB power supply you use with AirGradient?

It could be very helpful for the whole community as we are creating the community-sourced list that confirms which USB power supply model works with the AirGradient monitors.

#25

Well the ones I am using it with are not really available to buy anymore or are the built-in USB ports for a wall outlet. One of them is plugged into an Anker USB power hub thingy, and I’ve also used it with old Apple 5V phone chargers.

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#26

These have bee treating me well, and are fairly compact: Amazon.com: Flat USB Wall Charger Plug, Costyle 3 Pack 18W Quick Fast Charge 3.0 USB Charger Block Plug Adapter 3A Fast Charging Block for Samsung Galaxy S20 S21 S22 A54 A53 A14 A16, Android Phone (Black) : Cell Phones & Accessories

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#27

@vlotty @tadawson Thanks a lot!

Are there any that you find it doesn’t work?

#28

I’ve not tried a lot, but I have not found one yet that would not, but I do make sure that they meed published requirements.

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#29

Thank you so much for sharing this with us @tadawson !

#30

I think a list of devices that do work would become unmanageable. Nearly all USB power supplies will work, as it has been proven that even those under the stated minimum amperage are sufficient. A much shorter list would be those known to not work, which is going to be harder to fully quantify, as the power supply and the cables are both in the mix.

But I also support that the AirGradients should come with their own USB adapter so the end user doesn’t have to be responsible for providing another item to make this device minimally usable.

I understand that people may have extra power adapters, but with varying quality and capabilities. This is different from a phone where a charger is used for a short period in the day, but with the AirGradient it is needed from the moment it begins being used until it is retired.

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#31

@MallocArray Thank you so much for your honest feedback. That makes sense. I can’t remember if I encountered a power adapter (among a bunch of them in my house) that didn’t work so far.

Regarding the idea of providing a power adapter with the monitor, please let me add this to our notes (we are currently extensively exploring what could be added to make our product provide a better experience). We will later review this idea to make sure that our users have the best experience possible with the products.

Thanks again!

#32

At the very least, offer one as an option when an order is placed (checkbox or similar).

(I tend to NOT use my extra phone chargers, since features like fast charging are of no value with an AG unit, so in that light, and offering also makes sense. Can’t destroy something with overvoltage if the supply in question doesn’t have the capability!)

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#33

@tadawson thank you! I’ve added your feedback to the list.

The AirGradient monitors support standard 5V USB charging, which in theory all the USB chargers (including those fast chargers) should have this 5V charging profile built in. However, it’s not a bad idea to avoid using a fast charging power adapter, and just stick with a standard 5V charger. Some fast chargers may have USB negotiation issues sometimes with a standard 5V device (which, in this case, with AirGradient, it’s still very rare to see this issue from my experiments). Anyway, please feel free to share your thoughts if you find ones that don’t seem to work well with the monitor!

#34

True, but a 5 volt only charger can’t fault to a higher voltage - the others can.

Not a huge risk, but a risk nonetheless.

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#35

@tadawson Exactly! Anyway, I find (maybe just my feeling and I’m not sure if this holds true in other regions) that it is getting a bit difficult over time to find a well-known-branded standard 5V-only USB-A charger here in Thailand (which is sometimes frustrating if you specifically need it). A lot of USB-A chargers available here are usually equipped with Quick Charge protocol, or even more interesting (like Xiaomi’s ones) that their USB-A acts as if a PD charger (provides 5-20V via that USB-A port).