Inkbird E-Ink Air Quality Sensor IAM-T1 Review

Intro

Whenever I see e-ink on a product’s spec sheet or listing, I get a little excited. Also known as e-paper, these types of displays are very low power and have excellent viewing angles and contrast without distortions. Great for indoor temperature & humidity sensors!

The Xiaomi LYWSD02 and Qingping CGG1 have been my daily climate sensors for years now, I capture their packets with a pair of ESP32 boards and proxy them to Home Assistant. They have incredibly high reporting rate and their button batteries last easily a full year.

In this article, I’m testing an air quality multi-sensor with an e-ink display by INKBIRD labelled model IAM-T1. This is a new product with a dedicated CO₂ sensor which also measures temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure.

DISCLOUSURE: Following my recent review about Inkbirds IBS-P02R Pool Thermometer, the company contacted me and asked If could review their latest air quality sensor with an e-ink display labelled model IAM-T1. After they agreed upon my review guidelines, they sent me the device. This will in no way affect, sway of influence my opinion and is just my honest opinion as usual.

Features and Technical Specs

The INKBIRD IAM-T1 Air Quality Sensor is a Bluetooth 5.0 powered device with a dedicated next-gen Senseair CO₂ sensor which also measures your room’s temperature and humidity. Its technical specification from the manual:

• Model: IAM-T1
• Power Source: 2xAA alkaline batteries
• Screen: Low Power E-ink
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0
• Connectivity Range: 100m/327ft (open area)
• Reporting Interval: 1min (default), 2/5/10min
• Dimensions: 75x80x30mm
• Weight: 138g

There are some very interesting bullet points about the device in the user manual, per the company. First off, they claim a whopping 4 year battery life on a good set of AAs with a 10minute reporting interval. Decreasing this to 1/2/5minutes would naturally lower battery life.

Considering the small and low-power e-ink display, I have no reason to doubt this claim although I would hold some reservations on the 4 year number. INKBIRD further describes the screen as high-contrast, no dead-angle, 180° visual experience, which also proved to be correct from my experience with the device.

The IAM-T1 stores it’s measurements locally for up to 30days, it’s automatically transferred to the INKBIRD app whenever you are within it’s vicinity with your phone’s Bluetooth turned on.

Next Gen Senseair Sensor

The actual CO₂ sensor powering the IAM-T1 is a next-generation model by Senseair called Sunrise HVAC. Senseair is a widely known for the their high quality NDIR sensors among the smart home community, especially for the S8 Model [Datasheet] a device used in many brand and DIY applications.

The Senseair Sunrise HVAC has the following technical specs:

• Measured Gas: Carbon Dioxide
• Operating Principle: Non-dispersive infrared
• Measurement Range (CO₂): 400 – 5,000ppm. Extended range 10,000ppm
• Accuracy (CO₂): ±30 ppm ±3% of reading 1, 2 (extended range ± 10% of reading)
• Peak Current: <125mA
• Power Supply: 3.05 – 5.5 V 3
• Dimensions: 33.5 x 19.7 x 11.5 mm
• Weight: 5g
• Life Expectancy: >15 years
• Operation Range: 0 – 50°C, 0 – 85%RH

The Senseair Sunrise HVAC is a self-calibrating sensor, meaning you need to worry about it’s accuracy once deployed. INKBIRD’s implementation of the sensor in the IAM-T1 model allows for manual calibration too, if you maybe feel the measurement is inaccurate.

Packaging and Build Quality

The INKBIRD IAM-T1 ships in a high quality branded box with a set of batteries and a user manual. The device is professionally packaged, it leaves a premium feel when you are handling it. It’s size is perfectly adequate for a device of this type, I like that you can simply move it around without hassle.

The IAM-T1 is powered by 2xAA batteries, inserted under the back cap. There are two buttons underneath as well, one is used to quickly cycle between °C/°F and the other turns on the Bluetooth connectivity. You can freely use this device without any connection and save battery, this button does that.

Turning on the device immediately populates the screen with information about your room’s air quality and climate state. The first thing on the screen is the CO₂ measurement with big black bolded numbers, followed by the temperature and humidity in the right corner.

Underneath the screen, there is a 3-color indicator bar which is used to give you a sense of current CO₂ level in your room. The bar above it on the screen, fills up per your setup in the app (you can customize it) and sounds an alarm when CO₂ concertation is high. The preset values by INKBIRD:

• Green
  • CO₂ level bellow <1000ppm (good)
• Yellow
  • CO₂ level within 1000-1400ppm (medium)
• Red
  • CO₂ level above >1400ppm (unhealthy)

Breathing out near the device immediately increases the CO₂ reading, pushing it over 1000ppm. I don’t think a high reporting rate is needed for an air quality sensor, but I do like the fact it reacts immediately to CO₂ changes.

INKBIRD App Usage

Integrating the INKBIRD IAM-T1 Air Quality sensor in their app is simple and streamlined process. Once you toggle the button on the back of the device to turn on Bluetooth, the device gets auto discovered and added to your account. Here’s how the process looks like:

Those who read this blog know I don’t like to use proprietary apps and company software. I believe everything should be local, not dependent on any cloud or account and integratable in Home Assistant.

For those that don’t mind smart home apps, I will note that INKBIRD’s app is smoothly designed with a nice GUI, simple and easy to navigate and offers dark mode. Once the IAM-T1 is added successfully, it gives you the following features and data charts:

An interesting feature which caught my eye is the ability to export any data the sensor has recorded over a specified period in CSV format. You can use this to analyze and find patterns in your home’s air quality and ambient.

The sensor has alarms which you can preset in the app for CO₂, temperature and humidity. This makes the device emit a faint buzzer sound alerting you something has passed your threshold. Just like a traditional CO₂ detector, simple and effective.

Home Assistant Integration

My focus has always been Zigbee and Zigbee devices; I can write an external converter or a custom quirk in my sleep. However, BLE advertisements are not something I’ve ever dug into, especially non standard implementation such as INKBIRD’s.

Inkbird’s IAM-T1 Air Quality Sensor can be integrated in ESPHome and Home Assistant. It requires some tinkering and making sense of the BLE packets being published by the device. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far:

Using the esp32_ble_tracker component along with custom sensors created for the ble_client component, you can capture it’s BLE advertisements and parse the data in Home Assistant. For example:

esp32_ble_tracker:

ble_client:
  - mac_address: A0:11:22:33:44:7E #IAM-T1 Mac
    id: IAM-T1
sensor:
  - platform: ble_client
    ble_client_id: IAM-T1
    type: characteristic
    name: "FIRMWARE REVISION STRING"
    service_uuid: '180A'
    characteristic_uuid: '00002A26-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB'
Code language: YAML (yaml)

However, actually decoding and making sense of the data is easier said than done. And here’s why:

• To be able to capture BLE data, you need to know a few things:
  • MAC Address of the device
  • Service UUID
  • Characteristic UUID
  • (Optional) Descriptor UUID
• The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has released a set of Services, Characteristics and Descriptors UUIDs as an industry standard that companies need to follow. You can see the full list here
• However, it’s possible companies create their own services, characteristics and descriptors with unique UUIDs which make things difficult to decode
• INKBIRD uses non-standard implementation of services for each of the BLE advertisements broadcasted by the IAM-T1

So, what does this mean? Essentially, it means decoding the raw data advertised by the sensor is a lot of trial and error, constantly re-flashing the ESP32 board with new lambda functions in an effort to make sense of the data. Which is what I’ve been doing ever since I got the device.

I’ve reached out to a few people specializing in BLE and BLE advertisement, to help me make sense of the data parsed. Whenever we make a breakthrough, I will of course share the working code with the community. In any case, it’s safe to get the INKBIRD IAM-T1 if you intend to use it with ESPHome and HA, the device is not passkey locked.

Pricing and Availability

The INKBIRD IAM-T1 Air Quality Sensor is available on their official Amazon store and AliExpress. Like other air quality sensors (Aqara S1 Air Quality, Qingping CGS1), it’s a costly device.

Summary

The INKBIRD IAM-T1 is a capable and accurate air quality monitoring device with an E-Ink display. If you are looking for something that works out of the box, than this is a device for you. However, some things need to be noted and handled better than they are. Here’s a summary of my experience with the INKBIRD IAM-T1:

INKBIRD IAM-T1 Air Quality Monitor

Next-generation CO₂ Sensor, awesome e-ink display and a super long battery life.

– SmartHomeScene.com

Build Quality

Display Quality

Sensors Quality

Battery Life

App

Price

Summary

The Build Quality of the device is excellent, it feels premium and compact when handled. The mesh screens on the sides allow for better air circulation and thus more accurate measurements.
The E-Ink Display has excellent viewing angles from all sides, allowing the user to glance the information on the screen from a distance.
The Senseair Sunrise HVAC Sensor is a next-generation NDIR CO₂ sensor with a life expectancy of more than 15 years.
The Batteries are common and easy to replace, with INKBIRD promising a whopping 4 year battery life on a good set of AAs.
The App is easy and intuitive to use, however limiting the device to only the INKBIRD app is a serious drawback of the IAM-T1. ESPHome Integration is possible, although requires work.
The Price is a bit high, taking into account the device does not measure airborne particulate matter (PM).

4.5