AirGradient Forum

Powering Open Air O-1PST using solar/battery/inverter USB

#1

Flatspot

I just received my Open Air O-1PST (thanks to all!). I am considering installing it in my garden where I have an existing solar/battery/inverter setup used to power a water pump inside my rainwater collection tank.

The USB ports on the Bestek pure sine wave inverter that I have (MRZ5011BU) will supply up to 2.4A at 5V and I see the Open Air requires 5V at 2A. I believe this will work to power my O-1PST but would like to know if there are things that I should consider when planning this installation.

I have 4 panels (400W total) that maintain 2 12V - 100Ah batteries for storage. I can send photos of the components and installation if necessary.

Before I install it out there, what issues should I plan to address so that this works for me long-term?

Thanks.

#2

You’ll have wifi signal where you plan to install it?

While the requirements list 2A, it uses significantly less and it way overestimated, so you should be fine.

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#3

I believe that I do have WiFi out there but it remains to be seen. If I have to move it that isn’t a big problem. I can mount it out front where I already have one sensor suite with an extra receptacle for the power. I do want it to be out by the garden though so maybe if the WiFi is dicey out there I can just grab a repeater to push it on out there. My phone was showing two bars on WiFi though. Maybe that indicates I’m good?

That’s good to know about the actual power requirement. I don’t want to put myself in a position where I drain the batteries so if I need to add more storage, now would be the time to do that.

I don’t currently run anything except the 12V water pump from the panels or batteries and that is intermittent usage. I am considering switching to a 120V water pump so I can push water out to my orchard. Right now the small 12V pump is not up to that task. This would require more battery storage and possible a different inverter. I would have to study on that a bit.

Thanks for the informative reply. I’m gonna make a stab at setting this up later.

#4

Hey @Flatspot , did you implement this in the end? How did it go? :slight_smile:

#5

I did use the USB port on the solar inverter to power the AG. It has worked great with the only issue being that I initially blocked WiFi signal to the AG by using an aluminum louver between my router and the AG. I had intended the louver to serve as a shield to keep it out of direct sunlight and instead it kept the signal low enough that my unit kept dropping out. Signal levels were under worse than -80 dB and as low as -90 dB at times with predictable signal loss leading to the unit going offline.

After removing the aluminum louver and repositioning the unit the signal level became stable at around -82 dB and stayed online more than 98% of the time I estimate. For reasons that I don’t yet understand because I haven’t given much thought to it the signal level improved to -75 dB since September, 2025. I suspect that the signal improvement occurred as the trees between the router and the AG progressively lost their leaves.

I believe that there are photos of my setup here on the forums.

Since I store the solar energy in a small battery array and the AG uses minimal power it has performed nearly flawlessly running from the solar power on a building that is completely detached from the grid.

Like I mentioned, the WiFi signal has always been low out at the install site but even when the signal level reported as averaging -85 dB the unit was mostly online and signal loss was rare though it did occur. I have another thread somewhere about that issue.

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#6

And just a note that now AirGradient has the Open Air Max which has internal batteries and supports a solar panel to charge them, along with cellular connectivity to report to the Dashboard (as well as optionally changing to Wifi if wanting to keep it local)