So I have a bunch of home automation projects I’ve been tinkering with weather related. One of which is an air quality sensor that determines when the air quality is bad with the intention of displaying some visual notifications around the house. I’ve been working on the coding for it and currently have it sitting on my desk in my home office. My most recent addition to it was having it graphing the data out to a webpage on my home network so I could see the change over time. The day I finished it and started testing was the day before Thanksgiving, my niece, 14 years old, decided she wanted to spend the night to hang out with her cousin, my son, since her mom and dad were coming over for Thanksgiving the next day anyways.
My home office is also our guest room, so the bed she sleeps in is in there. She went to bed about 10, I went downstairs to play some video games and have a couple of beers. I finally went to bed about 1 am, when I walked passed her room, I could hear her talking on the phone.
Next morning comes and after everyone is up and moving I decided to check on my air quality sensor and see how the data looked on the graph. As soon as I pulled up, something was really suspicious. It was basically a flat line with values between 1 and 5 most of the time, but at 1:05 am and 1:15 am it spiked twice to ~150. I took me a few seconds to put 1 and 1 together… “the only time I’ve ever seen it get that high was when food was cooking and there was smoke coming off the stove”… ohhhhhhhhhh.
I called her into the room and showed her the paper and told her, “The only reason these numbers would show like this is there was some kind of smoke in the room”. She said, “I don’t smoke”. I said, “Or something like a vape pen.” Her face went white, “Are you going to tell my mom?” “No, but you need to give me the vape pen”. So now I have a vape pen.
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Pull it out in front of her and casually vape. Assert your dominance.
Pee on it first or after?
Yes.
Jesus Christ… all this just to find out she vapes. Congrats.
“So now I have a vape pen”
HOME AUTOMATION FOR THE WIN
Personally I would have made her watch a documentary on how vape pens can lead to health issues like collapsed lungs and then I’d give her a test on it. Then I wouldn’t say anything. Other choice: she can turn herself in. Vaping is pretty dangerous and taking the pen may or may not help. She can likely just get a new one.
lol, that ending…
“so now i have a vape pen.”
Classic
I thought this was going the “she farted” direction, cause I’ve heard of those modifying air quality sensor values.
It does. Don’t ask me how I know.
Okay fine I darted on it and it read it got a warning light and said unsafe for vulnerable populations. 🤣
It was always fun farting on the M8 chemical detectors. WHOOP WHOOP, WHOOP WHOOP!
Damn, i was curious about this while reading. Will organize a family event about who got the most toxic fart.
Finally, we can have contests based on quality and not limit ourselves to just volume and duration!
Nothing like a quality
airtime with the family.
Opening any kind of alcohol upsets mine. Or rather, it did… suddenly it isnt anymore which is probably a bad sign.
See I know I’m not mature enough to not fart near the sensor to try and set it off.
Farthing is not lady like. So she can’t use that as an excuse. Dudes are like whatever. I farted that’s why the air quality spiked.
I agree. I’d expect a young lady to deal more in pennies than farthings.
Tuppence?
Thank God you did it, somebody had to.
Yeah that was my thought too. It always makes me laugh when my dog is sleeping behind my chair in my office and I hear Alexa tell me the air quality has recently changed to poor. I love that dog but her farts are toxic.
lol that’s a helluva way to come up on a vape pen
So now I have a vape pen.
THC, or something more benign?
THC is the benign one lol
Not when they get their learner’s permit next year and total their mom’s car driving high.
What’s the not benign one?
Surely you don’t think THC is more dangerous than nicotine
Sweet, how’s the pen hit?
I can see both sides on telling her parents, but if you’re not going to tell them, I would definitely pull her aside in the future and follow up on it. If you think she is continuing to vape, I woulh definitely tell them.
There is a lot going on with her, she’s fragile. It was Thanksgiving, I didn’t want to put her mom in that state of mind. I talked to my wife about it and we both came to the conclusion that she’s probably going to be making some more bad decisions and when she does, we want her to know she can trust us. We did have a conversation with her, much more than what I posted. I don’t think we are going to change anything, but I hope it’s been driven in that we love her and are here for her.
No this is wrong. Smart and reasonable people are not allowed to use reddit. Jokes aside, you guys are amazing. I have a niece and she’s 5, i hope she stays the way she is.
Unfortunately disposables are cheap and pretty easy to get. And strong, like stronger than a cigarette. But I agree that it’s better to be the trusted adult than the “tattle tale” adult. (Tattle tale from the perspective of the kid. You’d be well within your rights to tell the parents).
I have 9 nieces and nephews. And the ones who are old enough know that they can come to me with something that’s embarrassing over their parents and I’ll actually help and keep my mouth shut. I am the “cool” uncle, but I don’t care about that. I’m just trying to be the adult that I never had growing up.
Heaven help me when they’re old enough to get into “real” trouble! I’ll be there for them, but I’m positive I’m gonna hear some shit, lol
You are an amazing Uncle and Aunt.
Damn you’re doin it right. She’s lucky to have you guys.
Kids always end up outing themselves. Either the parents will figure it out, or they mess up and leave one in a pocket for the laundry.
What sensor are you using?
She should have just said that she had chili for lunch.
Air quality sensors are scary, especially if you’ve got a good CO2 sensor. I can tell when my partner is home, food is cooked, window open, small group visiting, large group visiting, far-uvc sterilizers running, all from a few numbers from
I’ve been looking into room presence detection for a while now but regular motion and mm wave just fall short… honestly, using CO2 monitors might actually be a valid alternative. Something for to look into. Thanks for the inspiration.
My university did some research on non invasive attendance counting by using CO2 sensors. They were able to tell relatively precisely how many people were in a room by using only those.
Honestly though, there are easier ways to know if a small or large group is visiting your house.
I bought a Kidde Co2 monitor the other day which also monitors TVOC. It’s fun to watch it get mad when there is a whole lot of cooking going on (ie Thanksgiving)
Kidde? You sure it’s CO2, not CO?
😬 yes, you’re right. I meant CO.
I’d love to know how you can tell these things and also if you have any automations etc set up to use the results?
I just started looking, but haven’t seen any devices that measure CO2 and CO? Any thoughts or advice?
Just got mine. Only set it up Thursday.PM2.5 has been insistently high. Any ideas what causes that? Only asking you because you seem familiar with that sensor and the data signals / corresponding drivers
You suck!!!
No, but you need to give me the vape pen".
bwah
