Study on Airthings sensors battery life

Airthings makes some fantastic sensors. These disc-shaped little ufos have helped me monitor and investigate issues with stuff like Radon and CO2.

I’ve posted about the sensors before here: https://www.koskila.net/how-do-airthings-sensors-work-with-home-assistant/

This time, I’ll write about their battery life, which certainly could be improved…

In the picture below (a screenshot from my Home Assistant), I’ve tracked the devices’ battery levels. “Master Bedroom” device is a Wave Plus, and “Guestroom” is a Wave Mini.

It looks like Master Bedroom sensor really got about 13 months of battery life with 2 AA batteries. You can see yours truly changing batteries in early January – but I switched to rechargeable ones this time (they recommend against it) to see if there’s a difference.

Even if the battery life with my reusable accus would be much worse, I won’t hold it against this sensor – 1+ years of battery life with standard AA batteries with this level of data fidelity and features is fine.

But the Wave Mini sensor is much more annoying. It only has a couple of different sensors in it (humidity, temperature, VOC and a simulated “Mold” sensor), it has 3 AA batteries in it, and has a battery lifetime of 3-6 months (except for the last cycle, when it only lasted 1½ months!) which is way too little.