Mount and power via US junction box?

Components
#1

I’m interesting in buying a “ONE” indoor unit, and I’m figuring out how to best mount and power it.

  • I’m in the US.
  • I’d like it to be mounted on a wall.
  • I have a standard double receptacle at roughly head height.
  • I could replace it with a receptacle that provides USB power.
  • I see the back of the case case has the ~83mm vertical-apart slots which mention that they’re sized for US
    junction boxes.
  • Ideally I’d like to mount and power the ONE from the same, existing junction box.
  • From what I can tell, 83mm is the typical distance between the more interior screws on a wall box, not the distance between screws on the (quasi-decorative) wall plates. The latter are more like 96mm apart.

I’m a bit confused on how this works in practice.

  • Do I need an almost empty junction box (wall box), i.e. no receptacles, and figure out how to feed a usb cable into that from somewhere else behind the wall?

  • Since it looks like the back of the ONE case needs to be slotted on with a vertical motion, it looks like I’d need screw heads which stick out by a few mm to catch the back of the case.

Are there any images of diagrams of how to do this? My apologies if I’m missing something obvious.

#2

I don’t have a picture and in Thailand here we don’t have the US style wall boxes.

However, the idea is to mount it on top of a basically empty box and then use the 83mm distance that would fit the screw holes of the monitor.

You would then fit in a power supply converting 110v to 5v DC and feed the 5v into the monitor.

Example with a module like this.
image

To feed the 5v power to the monitor e.g.
image

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Support-OEM-USB2-0-type-c_62503814668.html

Maybe some other people also have some experiences they want to share?

#3

Thanks so much! This makes sense now.

#4

I would love to reopen this conversation as I ran into the same situation and was weighing up my options. Through some research I stumbled into this device, which looks like it’ll do exactly what I want:

Texas PoE In-Wall AC-USBC

For the sake of posterity though, I also considered:

  1. Run 120V into the electrical box and make my own converter using a female extension cord plug end and a 5V USB “wall wart” adapter. This would work and would let me use reliable UL-listed components, but is still pretty nasty. I’ve done this before in a different application, where I had more space than a single-gang electrical box.

  2. Run low voltage wires into the electrical box from somewhere else. I could, for example, have a transformer elsewhere (e.g. in a larger junction box somewhere) and then run low voltage wiring to the AirGradient electrical box. However this means that electrical box is only ever good for low voltage, and I have to have a separate, larger electrical box somewhere else for the transformer.

  3. Run PoE CAT wiring from my PoE switch to the electrical box and use a PoE to USB-C adapter. If in future my needs change, at the very least I have an ethernet wire available to use at that outlet.

#5

I take a simple way to power all Airgradient devices and smart home devices.
You can use a simple ANKER PowerPort 5 USB charger to power all the devices which is near together.
There is a small AC to DC power convertor that it can be fix inside the power box, the ONE have two screw holes that can be fix for UK standard power box then a small AC to DC convertor can be fix inside the box and use a USB short cable to power ONE.
I use power bar and small USB charger to power all the devices on the wall.
I found Amazon have a 4 ports USB charger that it can be plugged to the power socket directly.

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#6

Hi Matt,

That Texas PoE converter looks nice!

For posterity, I went with your option (2) more or less. An electrician removed the 120V from the wall box and ran a USB cable from attic; it’s attached to the wall wart there.

The AirGradient hangs on the screws that are meant to secure the outlet faceplate.

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3 Likes
#7

Oh nice! And looks like they left the pull string in too so you can easily replace that if you ever need to. :+1:

#8

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#9

I added an retrofit junction box above my light switches at 5’ to the top of the box. I ran a short Romex from the light switches to the new junction box and added a Leviton receptacle with a USB-C port. I drilled through the nylon wall plate so that the screws to secure the receptacle to the junction box can also be used as posts to mount the Airgradient. I then bought a 75mm USB-C ribbon cable to connect the Airgradient to the USB-C receptacle. It’s not completely flush with the wall since there is a wall plate behind it and the USB -C receptacle stands proud from the wall. I bought everything from Home Depot and Amazon. Looks pretty clean. Since I’m a new user, I can’t post any photos. Hope this helps.