Category: Air Quality Monitor

Air Quality Monitors in transports – Why do we need at least CO2 monitoring?

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

After the fiasco with the exposure notifications on smartphones which was designed by Apple and Google to facilitate digital contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that governments weren’t ready to accept the terms of the service for privacy reasons probably and also users weren’t keen on enabling such feature probably for the same reasons.

We have to be able to monitor the situation in indoor environments beyond the location of an individual and we already do that with air quality monitors. Indoor air quality monitors help us see the air we are exposed to and when something isn’t right like high CO2 concentrations, we get notified to act by opening the windows or turning on the ventilation system, or eventually leaving the room if none of the latter are an option.

I propose to bring that kind of awareness to the indoor environments of transports, especially, in long-distance buses, airplanes, and trains as we spend substation time inside these transports and we all share the same air.

Most vehicles allow drivers to choose between outdoor air or recycled air. They never ever mention the benefits of fresh air (but not clean) to the drivers, so in most cases, drivers never change the settings. Have you ever been in a car for a long time, having the recycled air turned on? The drivers always complain about the lack of focus or energy and many passengers fall asleep. In most cases, this is due to the lack of oxygen and the high CO2 concentration which is scientifically proved to affect and decrease cognitive function.

The same thing applies inside an airplane. However, the pilots get the most oxygen from the rest of the occupants in the plane, but still, I am not sure if the bus drivers know about the indoor air quality (IAQ) of their buses and the outdoor air or where is the recycled air switch.

Not only that, we know that CO2 is a great indicator of ventilation rates and consequently indicates the viral load inside a transport. A viral load is a numerical expression of the quantity of virus in a given volume of air. The higher the viral load the most likely is to catch the virus, any virus, or pathogen.

Air quality data like CO2/PM2.5 are not as privacy-sensitive as location information and they can help us in mitigating the spread of diseases and improving our cognitive abilities and health. Clean air means healthy lungs, heart, and brain.

Indoor air quality monitors are relatively inexpensive and CO2 sensors can operate for up to 15 years. They will also reveal the truth about the air we breathe in cities. I know that not many council members want people to know that the air they are exposed to daily is poor and unhealthy but if you are a good politician with real morals and compassion for your fellow dwellers then you want the best for them.

So maybe it is time to start designing indoor air quality monitors for transports. They can work offline or online depending on the transport. Passengers can access the information as their ticket can host a QR code with the link of the specific monitor/transport/route. In the case of an off-line monitor then a display with clear readings will allow passengers and the staff/cabin crew of the transport to adjust the indoor conditions.

Comparison: CO2 Monitors – Why do we need them in indoor environments?

Sotirios Papathanasiou6 Comments

I should have written this comparison a long time ago, but I was very busy the past few months. A lot of you have insisted, so here it is.

A CO2 monitor is the number one tool that can help us understand ventilation rates in indoor environments and consequently mitigate the spread of airborne viruses like coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), but let’s not forget the common flu either.

Carbon Dioxide CO2 can decrease our cognitive ability. The correlation between CO2 and productivity has been studied a lot for over 50 years by many academics. Interesting facts, the design standard for CO2 levels in most buildings is 1000ppm but the recommended concentration is below 700ppm. In one of the studies, Harvard researchers have found significant negative impact at 930 ppm.

According to World Green Building Council, they estimate the reduced absenteeism through sick days to be worth ~$35/m2. Again the World Green Building Council estimates that if employees’ productivity improves by even a 5% because of better IAQ, that alone would be worth ~$400/m2.

The monitors are divided into two categories, the ones that can be carried with you (portable/wearable) and the fixed ones and in most cases professional solutions. Each monitor offers different characteristics. Sometimes just because it has more features, it doesn’t mean that it is the right tool for you.

Most of the monitors offer much more than just CO2 monitoring. We spend a lot of time indoors and a more holistic approach is needed sometimes when it comes to indoor air quality (IAQ) or indoor environmental quality (IEQ).

The monitors are:

Analox CO2BUDDY

The CO2BUDDY is the only wearable CO2 monitor that can be used in so many places and for a variety of reasons. Very important for professionals that work in places where the conditions are extreme. Closed or crowded indoor spaces.

Aranet4 HOME

Aranet4 is a small and portable CO2 monitor that surprises people. It can be used as an indicator of productivity in schools and office buildings. It is packed with smart features for those that want to log measurements and share them later on.

Awair OMNI

Awair OMNI is a well-thought product that has one aim, to help professionals see the air and address potential issues. The Awair Display Mode allows users to display any information from the monitor to a big screen inside a bar, restaurant, office, school, etc. It features up to 8 hour battery and logs data on-device. It complies with the most common certifications from WELL V1, LEED, Fitwel, LBC, and RESET.

Ethera Labs TX mini

The Ethera Labs XT Mini ensures quality and competitive monitoring systems with great cloud platforms for all needs and budgets. By connecting the monitor to BMS, they manage to achieve energy efficiency while directly managing the ventilation system, as well as portable air purifiers. It is the only monitor that can be connected to a PC via USB and upload data locally.

Kaiterra Sensedge mini

The Sensedge Mini is a great and accessible choice for those that wish to get or not air quality certification by RESET, LEED, WELL, and others as the monitor complies with their requirements. The removable sensor modules reduce maintenance costs and ensure accuracy, something really important when you want to offer comfort and health to the building’s occupants.

Airthings Wave Plus

Airthings Wave Plus is designed for professionals and homeowners (different plans). It offers a great dashboard that makes air quality data comprehensive. Excellent low power CO2 sensor that runs on two AA batteries for up to 16 months and the colour LED ring can indicate the high CO2 levels. Additionally, it can measure Radon which is a radioactive gas.

Analox Air Quality Guardian

The Air Quality Guardian comes with a large LCD display that provides plenty of clear information for those professionals that don’t have the luxury of time to continually take their phones out of their pockets in order to check the CO2 concentrations and trends. Very loud alarm and great traffic light system🚦 where 3 LED lights will turn on depending on the concentration of CO2 in the indoor environment.

airthinx IAQ

Airthinx IAQ is designed for professionals, however, it is also available to homeowners too. The dashboard offers so many features that can really help you build a solid business model around it as you can rent the device(s) to third parties. The company provides a solid ecosystem of hardware and software, hard to resist.

Quick Comparison

All monitors deliver great CO2 measurements as I have tested them all. They all feature a non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor which is the best among the low-cost sensors because of their accuracy and low-power consumption.

Each monitor has unique features, so read each review individually to discover if it is the right fit for you.

Review: Air Quality Guardian by Analox

Sotirios Papathanasiou3 Comments

This is the second Analox product review that I have written on my blog. I like the product range and the solutions that Analox offer to professionals. The first review was about the CO2BUDDY, a portable/wearable carbon dioxide (CO2) monitor. In this review, I will write about the Air Quality Guardian. The Air Quality Guardian is a CO2 monitor station, designed for those that don’t want unnecessary smart features and too many bells and whistles.

The large LCD display provides plenty of clear information for those professionals that don’t have the luxury of time to continually take their phones out of their pockets in order to check the CO2 concentrations and trends. Keep in mind, the monitor measures other environmental parameters as well.

Specifications

  • 4” backlit LCD screen
  • CO2 Sensor Low drift NDIR (Non dispersive infra-red) CO2  sensor with a long lifespan 
  • Temperature and Relative Humidity Sensor
  • Simple 4 button navigation
  • Built-in data logging 
  • Simple three-level indoor air quality indication system including: 
  • Configurable audible and visual alarms
  • Power and charge via mini USB
  • 8 hour battery backup
  • Wall mountable or desktop
  • Dimensions 120 x 90 x 35 mm 4.75 x 3.5 x 1.4 in
  • CE, UKCA, RoHS 2.0 and FCC compliant
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Awair OMNI + Djinn

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I love combining technologies and services because this is a great and inexpensive way for companies to expand their businesses and for users to have a better experience. Awair has developed a great B2B air quality monitor the OMNI (hardware) and Djinn has developed a great B2B service (software) that combined together may offer better AQ insights or in other words, they contextualize data.

So I took the liberty to use the API Awair provides to its users and integrate it into Djinn’s platform. The reason is simple, Awair measures a plethora of parameters (temperature, humidity, PM2.5, VOC, CO2, noise, and light), and Djinn provides better insights into the impact those various indoor environmental parameters have on our health, like cardiovascular health risk and allergy risk. However, they also provide the productivity index which estimates the quality of the indoor environment with regard to the influence on productivity.

In real-life situations (offices, classrooms, etc) low-quality indoor environments may result in productivity drop up to 10% and more. Often in such cases, indoor environment quality is not comprehended by a person during the work process. The productivity index is based on research by cognitive scientists from various Universities.

According to the researchers, Human Decision Making Performance may be divided into different cognitive functions. Djinn service is able not only to estimate a general level of productivity, called Integral Productivity Index (IPI) but specify it for 9 cognitive activity areas based on research. An IPI is calculated as the average of all 9 directions. Those different models allow you to tune indoor parameters for optimal productivity according to your needs.

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Review: CO2BUDDY by Analox

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

Carbon dioxide (CO2) monitor sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic because they are good indicators of the indoor conditions in public places like schools, offices, restaurants, etc. The CO2BUDDY can be used in all these cases. However, it can cover even more scenarios as it functions as a tool for professionals that work in places where the conditions are extreme, for example, in dry ice shipping & logistics and COVID-19 vaccine distribution channels.

Dry ice is a solid form of CO2. As it warms, it goes through a process called sublimation, meaning it goes directly from a solid to a gas, bypassing the liquid state. As a result, huge concentrations of CO2 are released into the atmosphere and the environment. These concentrations can reach critical levels for the health of the employees.

I want my review to be as accurate as possible and despite the fact that I don’t work in harsh environments, I know people that they do, so I asked them to wear the CO2BUDDY during their workdays and share their experience with me. They were more than happy to help and they also took some photos. Before reading their experience let’s learn some technical details about the monitor.

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Episode 3: Melbourne, Australia – Wood Burning/Coal

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

Episode 3: Melbourne, Australia – Wood Burning/Coal – See The Air | Real Life Stories

In this episode, Arabella Daniel, who lives in Melbourne Australia, will share with us her everyday experience with air pollution. Arabella has founded "Clean Air Communities" in Australia. She is active at local, state & federal government level to advocate for policy change on Clean Air. Twitter: @CAirCommunities Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cleanaircommunities Please share and rate this episode with 5 stars.

In this episode, Arabella Daniel, who lives in Melbourne Australia, will share with us her everyday experience with air pollution.
Arabella has founded “Clean Air Communities” in Australia. She is active at local, state & federal government level to advocate for policy change on Clean Air.

Twitter: @CAirCommunities
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cleanaircommunities

Please share and rate this episode with 5 stars.

Review: Awair OMNI – B2B Air Quality Monitoring Solution

Sotirios Papathanasiou5 Comments

Awair is one of the earliest companies in the space of IoT air quality monitoring with great experience and knowledge as they have released a few consumers based air quality monitors like Awair Original, Awair 2nd Edition, Awair Element, and Glow C. Recently they entered the enterprise market with the release of Awair Omni.

I have seen the evolution of the company from the beginning as they have designed some of the most iconic domestic air quality monitors. The design language of Awair Omni is exactly what you expect from an air quality monitor inside a business environment like an office. The simplicity and the elegance of the product blend harmoniously without creating unnecessary distractions to the occupants of the room yet with the right information always available thanks to the dot matrix LEDs.

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Review: Aranet4 HOME – CO2 Monitor [EN/ES/GR]

Sotirios Papathanasiou12 Comments

Impact-Site-Verification: 8822d984-d7e0-4efd-9190-e8b1d8a8a633

(Scroll down for the Spanish or Greek version of the review/Desplácese hacia abajo para la versión en español o Griega/ Μετακινηθείτε προς τα κάτω για την ισπανική ή την ελληνική έκδοση της αξιολόγησης)

English
Español
Ελληνικά

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It is not a coincidence that everywhere you look nowadays you see a small, square, and white monitor with a screen in the middle that displays some numbers! Well, this is Aranet4 which was developed by a Latvian company.

Aranet4 is a small and mighty CO2 monitor that surprise people for two reasons. First of all, it is very comprehensive, and secondly, most people are intrigued by the technology of the display as it uses an e-ink display and, to the untrained eye, looks like a simple sticker.

The commonly found AA batteries can operate the monitor for up to 2 years so you don’t have to worry about them. It uses a single channel non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor technology for accurate CO₂ measurements, read more here.

Specifications

  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2) NDIR
  • Temperature (ºC/ºF)
  • Relative Humidity
  • Atmospheric Pressure
  • e-ink Display
  • Bluetooth
  • Buzzer (Alarm)
  • AA Battery Operated (up to 2 years)
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Smoggie-PM + Thank you

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

Choosing the 5 volunteers was a very difficult task because I had to take into consideration many factors. I wish I had as many monitors as the people (+150) that emailed me. The finalists are from Belgium, Uganda, Azerbaijan, the USA, and Spain.

The second Call for Volunteers was even more successful than the first one and I had the chance to learn from you a little more about the problems of air pollution around the globe and the situation each one of you faces. From Nepal, Poland, Netherlands, Australia, Azerbaijan, India, Romania, Italy, France, Kenya, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, UK, the USA, Finland, Serbia, Mexico, Spain, Israel, Ireland, and many many other places.

I want to THANK YOU all, it really means a lot your offer to raise awareness on such an important problem. I will follow closely the measurements from all 5 locations in order to understand better the impact air pollution has in the communities.

Remember, you can always purchase the inexpensive Smoggie-PM here.

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Review: XT Mini by Ethera Labs

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

Managing air quality monitors (AQM) in buildings is not always an easy task especially if you have deployed a lot of them. When there are many rooms that you have to take into consideration it can become very costly, very fast to equip all those rooms. Is there a way to monitor rooms without an AQM?

Well, it turns out there is a way to monitor the environmental and air quality conditions in rooms that do not have physical monitors nowadays. How?

Ethera Labs, which is a French company, with over 10 years of experience in professional IAQ solutions has integrated powerful Machine Learning (ML) algorithms that predict the conditions in rooms where air quality monitors are not installed, yes that’s right, you have read correctly. They have trained special neural networks by taking a lot of parameters into consideration in order to predict accurately the conditions and alerts users in case they need to take actions or even address an AQ/Environmental incident automatically.

By connecting the station to BMS, they manage to achieve energy efficiency while directly managing the ventilation system, as well as portable air purifiers or giving building operator the right information in advance so they can take action at the right time. They achieve two goals, great air quality and energy efficiency.

Hardware-wise Ethera Labs offers an arrange of monitors that can address different building specifications and needs. In this article, I will review the Mini XT Basic (MX-KIT020) and the NEMo Cloud/Supervision Cloud platforms.

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