These have to be the least accurate things I have ever seen.
The rectangular one is accurate or accurate enough and has been what I used but I noticed files all had cutouts for these round hygrometers…
Well from my 6 pack 1 is within a margin of error to even be useful.
I get they aren’t expensive but seems like a waste of money for this bad.
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I would not be at all surprised to learn that both the commodity round and rectangular units use the exact same components inside. These surely must be made from jellybean off the shelf parts, and at similar price points to each other neither could possibly be assembled with much care or attention to detail.
I have a six pack of the rectangular ones from Jeff Bezos’ Knockoff Whitebox Emporium. Even all sealed in the same container with each other, they all disagree by a spread of about 15%. I have no idea which of the six, if any, are actually producing an accurate number.
So, just because my rectangular one has been with me for a few years I’m gonna stick up for it a little. It does have 2 sensors in it separated for temp and humidity compared to the circular ones that seem to have the temp sensor baked into the board if it exists at all and the humidity sensor was poorly soldered upside down. But agreed on likely carelessness of assembly from identical parts.
Same batteries and sensor modules it seems and even the press fit nature of them. And the only reason I know that specific one I’m reading against is accurate is because I only kept it because it was the accurate one from a pack of them I grabbed from a lab in college.
I just don’t get why everyone uses them is my point if we are in agreement they kinda suck.
As an old toolmaker who might have dabbled in accuracy. I just shake my head when people complain about things like this because they think absolute accuracy --an impossibility-- is the important thing, (you can’t afford anything close absolute accuracy), when it’s repeatability that matters the most. Choose the one that repeats the best, toss the rest. Then learn what the “magic number” is that makes you happy to read and need to get the results you are looking for. Learn to apply some bloody “windage”.
Remember: Rick Sanchez is a dumb-ass. And you only need to be 5% smarter than the tool you are using to be successful. So be smarter than the tool and understand the process.
Mine work somewhat okayish, which is within the margin of error I need them for. I think there was one that was terrible though.
Mostly I use them for the temperature aspect, mostly for reminding me if it’s too hot or cold in my room (because due to my autism, I often don’t notice whether I’m at a comfortable temperature). I have a few scattered about my room and basically they act as a visual prompt to consciously ask myself if I’m at a comfortable temperature, and to act as a rough backup to whatever I’m feeling (because even when I’m consciously aware that my temperature is feeling Bad, I can’t reliably tell whether I’m too hot or cold, so these terrible thermometers at least help me answer “should I get a blanket, or open a window?”
because if it says anything other than 10% (the lowest thing it reads), then the dessicant needs to be refreshed.
it’s more of a binary output rather than trying to look at 53 vs 55%
You get your humidity down to less than 10%? Or still literally treating it like a binary thing and it’s just reading way under real?
I am at about 25% relative humidity and it’s showing as a 1 in the ams sensor so 10% seems impressive even though I’m not using much desiccant.
yeah, it’s usually 60% ambient humidity here, and then in the dry box it’ll read <15%. so that’s a pretty decent indicator to me that it’s working fine. I don’t really care if it’s 10, 15, or even your 25%, those are all way less than the ambient baseline and let me know that the dessicant is working.
If you’ve got some need to the humidity accuracy then that’s another thing, but for me that’s why I use those cheapos.
I use modified cereal containers with dessicant on the bottom and have a mount modelled up for those sensors.
I’ve pretty much been running on the binary theory with the AMS sensor: anything but a 1 is too high. I guess I’m glad I didn’t waste any money on those digital jobbies. I wonder if the old school analog style are better?
Yeah, that seems good enough for most people and I agree with using it instead of wasting the money on these even for a secondary check. I just wanted to track a new desiccant that doesn’t indicate and see how it compares to cheap silica.
The old school probably would work better in that they are often adjustable or calibratable, and I feel like I’d trust them more than these to even accurately change with added humidity. I’m gonna end up using paper Testors cause those honestly seem the more reliable analog system.
The old horsehair types are pretty decent though not precision meters. The numbers will be completely off unless calibrated, but you can make multiple meters agree. Either way, you can see which days they take a massive dive.
Much the same as those bimetallic thermometers.
@[email protected] Hygrometers are only as good as their components. Buying a DHT11/22 or SHT31 from AliExpress ($1-2) alongside an ESP8266/32 and you’d have much better results than buying these “are my cigars dry” pucks.
I’ve had massive differences in readouts in DHT22 from aliexpress. They are really not good sometimes
@[email protected] SHT31/41 are better than DHT22 tbf. DHT would have a variance of about 2-5%. It also takes a while for it to stabilize.
Thanks for the tip. The BME280 are also not too bad.
@[email protected] True - but it really depends what you’re measuring with BME280/680s though (680>280). As a combination temp/humidity/pressure they’re excellent, but for humidity alone I think SHT gives better “expected” readings than BME.
Someone nerded it out on arduino forums about five years ago: https://forum.arduino.cc/t/compare-different-i2c-temperature-and-humidity-sensors-sht2x-sht3x-sht85/599609/10
I’d really love to know how, once having purchased and aquired these two parts, how to join them, and get them powered, and to display. this is like secret engineering knowledge i’d love to be walked through
@[email protected] I have about $150 worth of Ali parts and components coming just this month for whole house monitoring for this kinda thing - temp, humidity, CO2, VOCs, pressure, light sensors etc. Would be glad to ping y’all once that writeup is done :)
LOL same. And this is why I bought bad tech. It’s a whole wild world if you can actually take electronic components and just wire them together and program them yourself.
You might just end up spending all your time doing that, though.
Good times.
I’ve been through all the junk Amazon hygrometers, name brands, no name, all junk. How has your experience been with the inkbird ITH10? I hope abe writes up a walkthrough for the DHT11/22 and ESP8266/32 setup, it’d be neat to order from Ali and work something up.
Just bought them after the realization of this. I will try to make sure I let you know as I found a really good deal that I’d be happy to share as well if they are good as long as you are fine with used.
After this thread the other day I bought some Inkbird’s on sale from Amazon to test them out, have had some ThermoPro TP39 around (and outside) of the house, and one of the Inkbirds was about 5% above on a salt test in a bag, out of the bag, they are all, seemingly reading LOW. Little sick of this, so I bought a Protmex HT607 to test out to see if my feeling is right, that the only one of the hygrometers in the photo that’s near correct (3%+/-) is the center ThermoPro. If my feeling is right, I’m going to return all the Inkbirds, and give ThermoPro some shit, make a warranty claim, where I’m sure they’ll send me 3 more junk hygormeters. I’m not prepared to spend $800 on a scientific hygrometer that can only do push button spot readings, can continue to be amazed that the market hasn’t produced an ADJUSTABLE always on moisture/humidity monitor. It’s pretty maddening.So I got my inkbird ITH10s and they are at least for me what I was looking for.
They aren’t all perfect and have a slight variation between them but they are consistent and only cost me $14 for 6 of them. And I’m really only trying to get a rough idea of difference between enclosure types.
But yeah these do feel consistently like e-waste that for most people’s need of tracking if their humidity on their filament has gone too high that the answer is just the color changing paper readers. That or old mechanical ones that are always on in a simpler way.
I’ve tried the old spring one’s too, and the spring quality determines the accuracy, but again, not over time. Turns out the Inkbirds are equally as accurate as the Protmex showed, all the TermoPro’s were junk, and after a brief chat with ThermoPro customer service they refunded my entire purchased which was over 6 months ago, so that was nice. I think my body has been conditioned by bad Hygrometers to misjudge waht 40% rh should feel like, but the inkbirds were a good find, am gonna keep the protmex to do spotchecks on the inkbirds every nowa and again
