HAVEN IAQ + IFTTT: Our First Step on the Path to Automate Your Air Quality

The Quantified Mechanical Air Journey

When we started down this road, there were many other air quality monitors on the market, but none of them solved the problem that we wanted to solve.

We've all been inside buildings that have stagnant - or "stale" - air, where there is no circulation or ventilation happening in the room you're in. Team HAVEN mostly resides in the Marine Climate Zone, where homes can achieve natural ventilation by opening windows throughout most of the year. The upcoming climate crisis is changing this, as we're experiencing more intense temperature swings and forest fire smoke that will cause us to keep our windows closed more often. Soon, we will be joining the rest of the continent in adding mechanical ventilation to our buildings.

Mechanical ventilation can balance healthy & comfortable air delivery with reduced energy consumption, but that achievement requires careful design, installation, and maintenance. In the past, a home's central air system was not designed to keep you healthy; comfort was the primary focus of a home's heating or cooling system. Though you can't see what's in your air, there are countless pollutants floating around from indoor and outdoor sources that linger inside your home unless there is adequate ventilation and filtration. These airborne chemicals and particles can get deep into your bloodstream and affect short and long-term health, and a comprehensive ventilation and filtration strategy is needed to remove these pollutants from your home. Unfortunately, your home's professional service providers are not obligated to follow any particular IAQ standards when maintaining your home's mechanical ventilation systems.

In commercial buildings, there are mechanical ventilation standards that specify the amount of air changes per hour required to keep employees and guests healthy and comfortable. In most cases, these standards are achieved through design and construction techniques, but unless your workplace has a building management system, there are no sensors that verify that the building is being ventilated as designed.

HAVEN IAQ wants to change how we think of the air in our buildings. We want to make professional IAQ accessible in the residential market through a combination of cutting edge sensor technology and smart home automations.

IFTTT Automations

Screenshot of the HAVEN IAQ Services page on IFTTT.com

IFTTT was one of the first accessible automation platforms on the web that allows a consumer to connect nearly any popular service to any other service. In the past, I've used IFTTT to download my Fitbit activity logs, alert me of outdoor air quality events, and to perform some simple home automations. Recently IFTTT has introduced their "IFTTT Pro" subscription, which allows multi-step applets, conditional logic, and multiple actions, which transitions IFTTT from a hobby-centric service to a professional platform.

We're excited to announce that we've recently released our HAVEN IAQ service on IFTTT. Through IFTTT, a HAVEN IAQ user can use the Central Air Monitor 's Temperature, Relative Humidity, VOC, and PM2.5 readings as triggers for the "If this" step of the IFTTT (= if this, then that) automations. Here are a few ideas of what you can do with HAVEN IAQ on IFTTT:

Turn on a (dumb) air purifier connected through a smart plug during high PM events
Turn on a bathroom fan via a smart switch during high VOC or Humidity events
Add an event to your calendar during an IAQ event to keep a log of when your Monitor readings crossed a certain thresholds
Export IAQ events to a Google Sheet
Make your smart lights change color based on IAQ events

To get started, head over to IFTTT, sign up for an account, and create an applet that uses the HAVEN IAQ as the trigger for the "If This" step.

If you would like to discuss IFTTT automations with other users and professionals, head over to the HAVEN IAQ Community to continue the discussion.

The Future of HAVEN IAQ Automation

IFTTT is only the beginning of our automation journey. Throughout 2021, Team HAVEN is committed to creating a rich automation ecosystem for actioning the air quality in your home.

Our first objective is to make HAVEN IAQ compatible with the existing smart products inside of a home, such as Wi-Fi connected thermostat. Throughout the first half of 2021, we will be releasing a new "Automations" feature inside of the HAVEN IAQ mobile app. Homeowners will use the Automations feature to connect HAVEN IAQ to popular smart thermostats other home automation services without leaving the HAVEN IAQ app.

Our second objective will be to launch a new hardware product that can transform a traditional piece of HVAC equipment into a smart home device. We're calling it The Central Air Controller , which is a wireless smart relay device installed by your HVAC professional, inside of your HVAC system. Once installed, the Controller will respond to IAQ events detected by the Monitor and will automatically toggle the appropriate HVAC accessory configured by your HAVEN Pro dealer to improve your Air Quality.