CO₂ Info

Purpose

The tiny foreground app helps you to decide when and how long to ventilate a room.

CO₂ Info app on a desktop, indicating the CO₂ concentration by color (here: green) and numerically (here: 482 ppm in room B206). The app can also be used for logging, annotating and plotting data.

The app alerts the user by changing its background color, when the CO₂ concentration in a room passes certain limits. As provided here, the script is configured for receiving data via MQTT from sensors in the IoT Network at the Technology-Campus Steinfurt, but may be adapted for other situations. The tiny window should stay on top of all other windows, hopefully also in presentation mode.

Installation

Please execute the following steps:

1. Make sure, Python 3.x is installed on your system.

2. Use pip to install the app.

   pip install co2_info
   

3. Open a terminal and run the script:

   python -m co2_info --config .config
   

   Here, .config, is a simple text file, that contains your MQTT credentials. Example:

   {
        "MQTT_USER": "username",
        "MQTT_PASSWD": "password",
   }
   

   If your MQTT broker allows anonymous subscription, just provide empty strings:

   {
        "MQTT_USER": "",
        "MQTT_PASSWD": "",
   }