This is a project to provide users an interface (read_waveplus.py) to read current sensor values from the
Airthings Wave Plus devices using a Raspberry Pi 3
Model B over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).
Airthings Wave Plus is a smart IAQ monitor with Radon detection, including sensors for temperature, air presssure, humidity, TVOCs and CO2.
Table of contents
The following tables shows a compact overview of dependencies for this project.
List of OS dependencies
| OS | model/version | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 3 | Model B | Raspbian image |
| Linux | x86 Debian | Should work according to bluepy |
List of linux/raspberry dependencies
| package | version | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| python | 2.7 | Tested with python 2.7.13 |
| python-pip | pip for python2.7 | |
| git | To download this project | |
| libglib2.0-dev | For bluepy module |
List of Python dependencies
| module | version | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| bluepy | 1.2.0 | Newer versions have not been tested. |
| tableprint | 0.8.0 | Newer versions have not been tested. |
The first step is to setup the Raspberry Pi with Raspbian. An installation guide for Raspbian can be found on the Raspberry Pi website. In short: download the Raspbian image and write it to a micro SD card.
To continue, you need access to the Raspberry Pi using either a monitor and keyboard, or by connecting through WiFi or ethernet from another computer. The latter option does not require an external screen or keyboard and is called “headless” setup. To access a headless setup, you must first activate SSH on the Pi. This can be done by creating a file named ssh in the boot partition of the SD card. Connect to the Pi using SSH from a command line interface (terminal):
$ ssh [email protected]
The default password for the “pi” user is “raspberry”.
In the terminal window on you Raspberry Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~$ bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# power on
[bluetooth]# show
After issuing the command show, a list of bluetooth settings will be printed
to the Raspberry Pi terminal window. Look for “Powered: yes”.
Note: The
read_waveplus.pyscript is only compatible with Python2.7.
The next step is to install the bluepy Python library for talking to the BLE stack. For the current released version for Python 2.7:
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo apt-get install python-pip libglib2.0-dev
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo pip2 install bluepy==1.2.0
Make sure your Raspberry Pi has git installed
pi@raspberrypi:~$ git --version
or install git to be able to clone this repo.
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo apt-get install git
Additionally, the read_waveplus.py script depends on the tableprint module
to print nicely formated sensor data to the Raspberry Pi terminal at run-time.
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo pip2 install tableprint==0.8.0
Note: The
read_waveplus.pyscript has been tested with bluepy==1.2.0 and tableprint==0.8.0. You may download the latest versions at your own risk.
Downloading using git:
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo git clone https://github.com/Airthings/waveplus-reader.git
Downloading using wget:
pi@raspberrypi:~$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Airthings/waveplus-reader/master/read_waveplus.py
To read the sensor data from the Airthings Wave Plus using the read_waveplus.py script,
you need the 10-digit serial number of the device. This can be found under the magnetic backplate
of your Airthings Wave Plus.
If your device is paired and connected to e.g. a phone, you may need to turn off bluetooth on your phone while using this script.
cd into the directory where the read_waveplus.py script is located.
pi@raspberrypi:~$ cd waveplus-reader
Note: The Wave Plus has a sensor sampling frequency of roughly 5 minutes, thus the current sensor values reported will remain the same between each time the Wave Plus requests a new reading from all the sensors. It is currently not possible to change the frequency which the Wave Plus reads from its sensors.
Run the Python script read_waveplus.py in the following way:
pi@raspberrypi:~/waveplus-reader $ sudo python2 read_waveplus.py [SN] terminal
where you change [SN] with the 10-digit serial number.
After a short delay, the script will print the current sensor values to the Raspberry Pi terminal window. Exit the script using “Ctrl + c”.
If you want to pipe the results to a text-file, you can run the script in the following way:
pi@raspberrypi:~/waveplus-reader $ sudo python2 read_waveplus.py [SN] pipe > yourfile.txt
where you change [SN] with the 10-digit serial number. Exit the script using “Ctrl + c”.
| sensor | units | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Humidity | %rH | |
| Temperature | °C | |
| Radon short term average | Bq/m3 | First measurement available 1 hour after inserting batteries |
| Radon long term average | Bq/m3 | First measurement available 1 hour after inserting batteries |
| Relative atmospheric pressure | hPa | |
| CO2 level | ppm | |
| TVOC level | ppb | Total volatile organic compounds level |
Initial release 12-Dec-2018