as I tend to post about CO2 sensors... here's some preliminary notes.
IKEA ALPSTUGA is using Sensirion SEN63C which internally appears to use STCC4 (ty evey for the research), which is a thermal conductivity based CO2 sensor.

It doesn't purport to be as accurate as NDIR sensors, but still has pretty reasonable values (iirc ±75ppm±10%). It is much more promising than anything that gives an "eCO2/CO2eq" value, and it is much cheaper than good NDIR sensors.

I generally like sensirion's NDIR sensors as they have very reasonable self calibration, they won't just randomly drift by significant amounts if you don't open the window regularly to the point of getting your room down to near-outdoor co2.

Over a test of 12 days comparing against an SCD41 CO2 sensor, physically side by side, it sadly started to drift significantly (300ppm) after about a week, but went back to being almost exactly NDIR level after opening the window for a few hours.

Unfortunately, that appears to be a downgrade in terms of self-calibration behavior. Note how both weren't exposed to ~4x0ppm for over a week, but only one drifted. I have previously confirmed that SCD41 behaves similarly to aranet4 (which has a senseair ndir sensor) on this, so I am presuming that it is the STCC4 that drifted. I'll test with an aranet4 next to them too, just to make very sure.

Overall if you do reliable Lüften then ALPSTUGA may be for you. For a portable CO2 meter, if you go outside more than once a week, the SEN63C/STCC4 would probably be a good sensor. Unsure if I can recommend it for event-only use (think something used for fosdem that gets packed right after event and opened right before event starts) or for very reliable data for home use in winter. Probably good for offices as leaky windows will likely get it down to 400ppm every night, or at least every weekend.

I set up an entire thread network at home to graph this btw lol.

Less CO2-shaped notes:
- ZBDongle-E is a €20 dongle that works with openthread border router. You can flash it with openthread firmware. It works.
- Not a fan of matter over thread requiring using my phone to enroll everything, especially google play services is bound to be a turnoff for some.
- SEN63C supports PM1/2.5/4/10 but ALPSTUGA only exposes 2.5, even over matter :( I don't care much for particulate counts tbh but it feels they could add that with only a firmware update as a nice value-add.
- IKEA matter over thread bulbs and remotes do not currently support direct pairing, which I believe means that if your thread router goes down, you cannot control your lights. Until they release a firmware update for that I'll stick with their zigbee bulbs and remotes. This may be less important if you have e.g. an apple tv or ikea's own router+border gateway rather than a hacky home assistant setup.

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Last in these series: https://web.archive.org/web/20251110161506/https://queer.party/@ao/111779978098588711

ave (moved!) (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image I talk shit about eCO2/CO2eq sensors a lot, and sometimes think if I'm being too mean. I think I'll make a quick thread on it so I can reference it in the future. I got an SGP30 TVOC/CO2eq sensor (for the TVOC part) yesterday, and I set it up and calibrated it today. I even fed it the absolute humidity data it can use to output better data. Here's it compared to a proper CO2 sensor:

Queer Party!
@ave I am still rather sad about IKEA not making zigbee stuff any more... maybe thread/matter will get better but for now it seems like a step towards Big Corporation. kinda like passkeys except passkeys actually make life better

@eta @ave spec wise they’re pretty much identical in terms of open-ness

I half a half-working Matter impl in python and other than one warning during pairing about it not being a certified device nothing cares

@q @eta @ave i am a newbie and have a lil homeserver. so i guess if i wanted to start with IoT stuff and run it as a hub, i would get a usb dongle and homeassistant?
@tammeow You can do that, yeah.
Adding devices to the network still requires using your phone usually (HA appears to have a developer option to enroll from the webUI but I haven't tested it and the messaging around that button is pretty discouraging).
You need to use the home assistant app to sync the thread keys to your phone (once), then your phone can be used to enroll devices through normal means, which also signals home assistant at the very end that the device has been added.

@tammeow I ended up using https://blog.maxaller.name/engineering/2025/08/10/thread-matter-home-assistant-docker.html as I run home assistant in docker to not have to dedicate an entire raspberry pi to it.

If you go that route and get a ZBDongle-E, you might want to see my comment here: https://github.com/ownbee/hass-otbr-docker/issues/23#issuecomment-3993029920

Thread/Matter with Home Assistant Docker: Yes, It Actually Works

Getting Thread/Matter working with Home Assistant Docker using ownbee/hass-otbr-docker and proper network configuration.

occasionally useful