SensorPush Hygrometer

BlueTooth + Wifi Sensor $89.99    Wireless Gateway + $100

Extremely Accurate Water-Resistant housing tracks… Temperature / Humidity / Barometric Pressure / VPD. This Smart Sensor pairs effortlessly with a mobile app via BlueTooth, and if you want the option of checking in on it from anywhere in the world you can add the optional WiFi Gateway.

Dollar for dollar this little cube is the best drying/curing tool you can own.

One problem I found in using this little thing is that it’s so small that it becomes very easy to lose track of where you put it. When this happened to me, I downloaded an app called BLE Scanner which locates all the BlueTooth devices in your vicinity and tells you how far away you are from each of them. To use it you simply move around slowly until you see whether you are getting closer or farther from your SensorPush sensor. I used this when an employee didn’t see that I was measuring a batch in the curing room and they packed the pound and the sensor into a pound bag without seeing it. Then that pound went into a box with 15 other pounds and that box went into a room with 10 other boxes… This little bluetooth proximity scanner saved me from having to unpack all those pounds.

Pulse Pro

Temp / RH / CO2 / PAR / PPFD / VPD / Spectrum       $499.00 USD

This is an extremely powerful little meter that packs a TON of useful features that growers need.

This may be the perfect all-in-one grower toolkit. The VPD features are extremely advanced. In a curing room you could use the CO2, RH, Temp and all the alarm features.  You can find it at  https://pulsegrow.com

Vaisala ~ CO2+RH+T

Wall Mount BACnet/Modbus Transmitter, Display GMW95RD

For demanding HVAC & green building projects     USD$482.00 (+ taxes)

Vaisala GMW90 Series Wall-Mount CARBOCAP® Transmitters are designed for high performance HVAC, demand controlled ventilation (DCV), and indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring. CO2 measurement is based on Vaisala’s unique, second-generation CARBOCAP® technology that enables exceptional stability. The internal reference in the CO2 sensor guarantees the best stability and operation also in constantly occupied buildings without frequent readjustments (eliminates need for Automatic Background Calibration ABC algorithm). GMW95RD uses the Vaisala HUMICAP180R humidity sensor for superior long term stability. The sensor is also insensitive to dust as well as to  most chemicals.   These transmitters include user exchangeable measurement modules, which can be ordered as spare parts and are delivered with a calibration certificate. The GMW95RD model includes the following: • CO2 Measurement 0 … 5000 ppm, analog outputs configured for 0…2000 ppm • Temperature Measurement -5 … +55 °C (+23 … +131°F) • Relative Humidity Measurement 0…95% • Digital communication, BACnet or Modbus • Always visible display for easy calibration. • Traceable calibration certificate  Air Monitoring Tools

MadgeTech Element       CO2 / Humidity / Temp 

The all-in-one solution for acquiring a complete environmental profile. The Element CO2 is a wireless data logger that measures and records carbon dioxide, humidity and temperature levels for agricultural applications. 

The Element CO2 comes with a 16 ft. cable connected to the CO2 sensor, making it ideal for grow rooms as well as in Drying, Trimming and Curing rooms. User-programmable alarms will alert users via email or text when thresholds are crossed.

The Element CO2 is also MadgeTech Cloud Services ready, or you can use your own internal server, providing users the ability to monitor real-time data remotely on any internet enabled device.

You’ll need one Element CO2 for each room you wish to monitor. $770 
And one Wireless Relay per building. $500

Humidification Types

Controlling your Curing room environment will require the normal things like Air Conditioning for heating and cooling, and a dehumidifier for lowering the moisture in the air, but in addition to all the normal controls, you will also need to install a machine that is capable of ADDING moisture to the air. This may also be needed to a smaller extent in the drying and trimming rooms, but the curing rooms will absolutely need humidification, and the meters to monitor it carefully.

Humidifiers are not common equipment in a normal room setting. You may have them in your grow room – especially in the Veg or Propagation rooms, but most normal rooms inside a building do not have any means of adding humidity.

To accomplish this you will need to install a machine specifically dedicated to this purpose, and you will need to provide some sort of water supply to that machine. Some humidifiers have a built in basin to hold water and you simply refill it manually when it runs low. Others attach to a water pipe which provides a continuous supply of water without any action from you. Obviously the latter of these options is preferred. 

There are basically three types of humidifiers… 

• Ultrasonic
• Steam
• Evaporative

Only the ultrasonic is appropriate for a cannabis farm.

Ultrasonic Humidifiers

This type vibrates a small ceramic plate to create ultra fine water droplets so small that they actually float in the air as a cloud. The big advantages are super quiet, super small particles, and very good at automating humidity control for larger rooms. This large unit by Idealair may be overkill unless your drying and curing rooms are quite large. Most ultrasonic humidifiers are fully automated and they produce a very fine cloud for even humidity increase. The humidity range is 30-90% with an accuracy of roughly 5% which depends heavily on the efficiency of the air circulation in the room.

Ideal-Air Pro Series Ultra Sonic Humidifier 150 Pint    $862

Ideal-Air Industrial Grade Humidifier, 200 pint  $560

Note:  I highly recommend that you use an RO filter upstream of any ultrasonic humidifier because the small ceramic plates that are the working mechanism, will pretty quickly get damaged by the calcium deposits created by hard water. 

Smaller units like this one can be purchased on Amazon for under $300 and they’ll pump out roughly 2 liters per hour. Two liters, or half a gallon, may be all you need to keep a fairly large size drying or curing room in just the right humidity zone. Since these units have no real fan power to move the moist air around so you’ll need to supply air circulation fans of your own. I’ve used small units like this in a curing room and achieved excellent results.

Steam Humidifiers  (not recommended)

Steam Humidification works by boiling water to produce warm moist air. This can be perfect for cool seasons or cooler climates where you could stand to warm the room up a bit at the same time, but in the case of a curing room, you need the space to remain cool and you don’t want to be required to install an air conditioner to cool the space. That situation would be placing two machines working in opposition of each other.  Steam humidifiers also use a lot of electricity compared to the others because they must heat the water. It does have the advantage of sterilizing the water and removing any contaminants because it is basically producing distilled water vapor.

Evaporative Humidifiers (not recommended)

Evaporative humidifiers work by blowing dry air through a filter soaked in water. As the air passes through, the water evaporates and increases the moisture level in the air. This process only works in warm, dry weather conditions and even on a warm day, it doesn’t have the ability to change the humidity that much. These might work fine in a household environment, but in a drying or curing room I would avoid this type.