Sensibo Pure creates a sensor for pm2.5 but it's really reporting an AQI enum of some type

[mikeage]

The problem

The Sensibo integration creates a sensor for a Pure filter which claims to show PM2.5 in µg/m³, but in reality, it just passes the values from the Sensibo API, which range from 1 (good) to 3 (poor). Sensibo does not, unfortunately, expose the raw data in the API, and they won't even confirm exactly which pm2.5 values correspond to which characterizations (I can forward the email thread I had with them if desired). As such, I think the unit here should probably be AQI -- I see my Sensibo Pure in Homekit reports values of type "aqi" with values 1 - 5 (though the Sensibo device only sends 1, 3, and 5, never 2 or 4), so perhaps this is the correct scale for the sensibo integration as well.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

all

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

n/a

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

Integration causing the issue

sensibo

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/sensibo/

Diagnostics information

config_entry-sensibo-3be4bb363e2bd0be222029c0842f9681.json

Example YAML snippet

n/a

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant]

Hey there @andrey-git, @gjohansson-ST, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (sensibo) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[mikeage]

Email thread from Sensibo, in reverse chronological order:

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your insightful follow-up question. While the current API does provide PM2.5 data in broader categories like 'good', 'moderate', and 'poor', we don’t have a publicly available mapping of specific µg/m³ ranges to these categories.

However, as a rough guide, here’s how air quality is typically categorized based on PM2.5 concentrations:

0-12 µg/m³: Good
13-35 µg/m³: Moderate
36-55 µg/m³: Unhealthy for sensitive groups
56-150 µg/m³: Unhealthy
151-250 µg/m³: Very Unhealthy
251+ µg/m³: Hazardous

Please note that these ranges might not perfectly match how our devices categorize air quality, but they provide a general idea for your reference.

Thank you again for your feedback. If there are any changes to the API or if more granular data becomes available, we will be sure to inform our users.

Best regards,

Grayson Winters | Customer Support Agent
support@sensibo.com

On Fri, May 17, 2024, at 04:09 AM, Mike Miller < REDACTED > wrote:
One followup, if you don't mind -- is it possible to get the mapping of ug/m3 -> quality? I.e., 0-20 is good, 21 - 100 is moderate, and 101+ is poor, or whatever the numbers are (I'm sure it's not these!)

On Thu, May 16, 2024, at 08:13 PM, Sensibo Support <support@sensibo.com> wrote:
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your feedback and the follow-up message. I understand your desire for more detailed PM2.5 data from our API. While it's not something that's immediately available, your feedback is valuable, and I've passed it along to our development team for future consideration.
If there are any changes or updates regarding this, we will be sure to inform our users. We appreciate your understanding and your continued support.

On Thu, May 16, 2024, at 06:00 PM, Mike Miller wrote:
Thanks, that's what I was afraid of. I understand the value of a simple display, but too much data can always be solved with simplification. The opposite tends to be less true! In any case, I'm hoping the decision changes, though I know that's not very likely.

On Thu, May 16, 2024, at 05:52 PM, Sensibo Support <support@sensibo.com> wrote:
Hi Mike,
Thank you for reaching out with your query. Currently, our API simplifies PM2.5 data into broader categories like 'good', 'moderate', and 'poor' rather than providing detailed values in µg/m³. This is to make it more accessible for broader use cases. Unfortunately, there are no immediate plans to add more granular PM2.5 data to the API.
However, we truly appreciate your feedback, and I will pass it along to our development team for future consideration. If there are any updates or changes, we will be sure to inform our users.
Thank you for your understanding!

On Thu, May 16, 2024, at 05:34 PM, Sensibo Support <support@sensibo.com> wrote:
Hi Michael,

Thank you for getting in touch with Sensibo Support. We've successfully received your inquiry.

To help you resolve your issue more quickly, we encourage you to explore our Help Center, where you'll find a wide range of troubleshooting guides and detailed information on our products.

On Thu, May 16, 2024, at 05:34 PM, Mike Miller < REDACTED > wrote:
Hi,
I was wondering if there's any way, or any plans to add a way, to get actual PM2.5 data from the API. From what I can tell, it always returns either a 0, 1, 2, or 3 (maybe it goes higher, but I wasn't able to find a case like that), but that's clearly not ug/m3, which would be the normal measurement; I'm guessing it's something like "not available", "good", "moderate", "poor", but there's no indication what the categories mean, let alone detailed information.
Thanks