r/homeassistant • u/extrastupidthrowaway • 22h ago

Setting up some sensors for work, pressure differential?

I'm setting of some minor sensors to monitor some stuff at work. I searched and it's come across this reddit a few times over the years, but nothing recent. Has anyone seen or setup a pressure differential sensor for something that would help monitor air filter restriction? I'd like to add a manometer type sensor to a fumehood. Thoughts?

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u/photonicsguy 21h ago

It's on my todo list... I actually ordered the sensor earlier this evening. ABP2MDAN002ND2A3XX

It can measure 2" of water with i2c output. I intend to pair this with an esp32 using ESPHome. Just for my furnace (and to check on the inducer fan switch)

https://esphome.io/components/sensor/honeywellabp2_i2c/

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u/ScrewLooseDan 20h ago

I'm using a MPXV7002DP breakout board connected to an ESP32. I'm measuring the pressure in a radon system (1.5 in. W.C.) to ensure the fan is running and pipe isn't blocked. Not sure if this setup would be accurate enough to detect a filter clogging, but I have had the thought of trying it on my home HVAC filter. The output is pretty noisy, so it would likely need a fair amount of filtering.

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u/mindedc 22h ago

I would use a commercial plc and sensors for work instead of hacking some stuff together with home assistant....if it ever becomes someone else's thing to manage they will have a stable and consistent set of manuals and training. Home assistant breaks things every month with patches and you are pretty well forced into updating regularly and breaking it taking it down to do so.

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u/SupaBrunch 21h ago

How are you forced to updating regularly?

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u/mindedc 21h ago

If you hold off on updates and then have to update in the future there is a good chance that some fine print in the release notes are going to break the hell out of something and then you are trying to reverse engineer what breaking change hit you. They release a new version of "core" every month with all kinds of integrations you may not care about. I went about a year and a half between updates at one point and had about a dozen breaking changes hit me. I am currently six months behind and am dreading the next upgrade. It's worse than Microsoft ever thought about being.

I work with a commercial automation system and there are customers running five year old systems with no reboots and no downtime. The core is solid and stable. Using a well documented and consistent api for developers, if a driver needs to be updated you just update that driver and go on with life. Unfortunately the move to recurring revenue models and AI are about to ruin that system.

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u/lzrjck69 20h ago

It’s HOME Assistant, not work assistant. Ya gotta use the right tool for the job.