Category: indoor

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
Read More »

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.

Read More »

Thailand School sets the AQ bar high – An example to be followed

Sotirios Papathanasiou4 Comments

On Earth, there are over 7 billion people but very few of them have a clear vision of a future and how important air quality is for our health. You will find politicians that are unwilling to enforce air quality laws, you will find educators scared to share with parents the indoor air quality, and you will find lots of people unaware of what they breathe or what they burn.

Among all of them, you will find very few people that want to make things right for the rest. In this case, the Head of School at Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Chiang Mai, Thailand was brave and educated enough to recognize the power of air quality data.

Chiang Mai is a city in exotic Thailand that always ranks in the top polluted cities in the world between March and April. The reason is the burning season. I was taught about the 4 seasons (Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter) at school but it turns out that they have a fifth season − normally in March and April − when crop waste burning and forest fires fill the air with particles, PM2.5 levels can reach 300 μg/m³.

Read More »

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

_________________________________________________

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)
Read More »

Episode 2: Athens, Greece – Wood Burning/Fireplaces

Sotirios Papathanasiou6 Comments

Episode 2: Athens, Greece – Wood Burning/Fireplaces – See The Air | Real Life Stories

[EN]This is a bilingual episode. If you want to listen to the Greek version please go to minute 14:52.In this episode, Andrea, who lives in Athens Greece, will share with us his everyday experience with air pollution.The main source of air pollution in his city during winter is wood burning/fireplaces.Andrea tries to educate the Greek community about the dangerous of air pollution on his blog.Website: https://cleanairingreece.org/Twitter: @cleanairgreeceFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/abonettiphoto/Please share and rate this episode with 5 stars.[GR]Αυτό είναι ένα δίγλωσσο επεισόδιο. Εάν θέλετε να ακούσετε την ελληνική έκδοση, πηγαίνετε στα 14 λεπτά και 52 δευτερόλεπτα.Σε αυτό το επεισόδιο, ο Andrea, που ζει στην Αθήνα, θα μοιραστεί μαζί μας την καθημερινή εμπειρία του με την ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση.Η κύρια πηγή ατμοσφαιρικής ρύπανσης στην πόλη του κατά τη διάρκεια του χειμώνα είναι καύση ξύλου / τζάκια.Ο Andrea προσπαθεί να εκπαιδεύσει την ελληνική κοινότητα σχετικά με την επικινδυνότητα της ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση στο blog του.Website: https://cleanairingreece.org/Twitter: @cleanairgreeceFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/abonettiphoto/Παρακαλώ μοιράστε και βαθμολογήστε αυτό το επεισόδιο με 5 αστέρια.

[EN]
This is a bilingual episode. If you want to listen to the Greek version please go to minute 14:52.

In this episode, Andrea, who lives in Athens Greece, will share with us his everyday experience with air pollution.
The main source of air pollution in his city during winter is wood burning/fireplaces.
Andrea tries to educate the Greek community about the dangerous of air pollution on his blog.

Website: https://cleanairingreece.org/
Twitter: @cleanairgreece
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abonettiphoto/

Please share and rate this episode with 5 stars.

[GR]
Αυτό είναι ένα δίγλωσσο επεισόδιο. Εάν θέλετε να ακούσετε την ελληνική έκδοση, πηγαίνετε στα 14 λεπτά και 52 δευτερόλεπτα.

Σε αυτό το επεισόδιο, ο Andrea, που ζει στην Αθήνα, θα μοιραστεί μαζί μας την καθημερινή εμπειρία του με την ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση.
Η κύρια πηγή ατμοσφαιρικής ρύπανσης στην πόλη του κατά τη διάρκεια του χειμώνα είναι καύση ξύλου / τζάκια.
Ο Andrea προσπαθεί να εκπαιδεύσει την ελληνική κοινότητα σχετικά με την επικινδυνότητα της ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση στο blog του.

Website: https://cleanairingreece.org/
Twitter: @cleanairgreece
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abonettiphoto/

Παρακαλώ μοιράστε και βαθμολογήστε αυτό το επεισόδιο με 5 αστέρια.

Spring Clean Your Indoor Air Quality

Sotirios Papathanasiou6 Comments

During Spring (March, April, May) most people in Northern Hemisphere dedicate extra time to clean and organize their house for the warmer months. Many times we start this process unconscious of the dangerous chemicals present in cleaning products that may be released into the indoor environment. What can we do to improve indoor air quality, especially during spring when many people suffer from allergies?

Here I will conclude a few tips and steps in order to make the most out of this process and detox your house from nasty chemicals and other pollutants/allergens.

1st Tip – Bed Linen

It is important to ventilated bed linen and in case this is not an option we can always change them with clean ones. It is hard to tell how often someone should change the bedsheets but I would recommend at least 2 twice a month. Avoid synthetic textiles like Acrylic, Polyester, Nylon, etc, and invest in good cotton or silk (expensive) sheets and pillowcases as they offer the most comfortable experience, and they don’t pollute the environment once they are washed.

Dead skin and hair can build up and we don’t want to feed dust mites. According to House Dust Biology by J. Bronswijk human skin particles make up approximately 53% of household dust which leads me to the next tip.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Review: Aether Air HA30 an in-Vehicle Air Purifier

Sotirios Papathanasiou5 Comments

Commuting to work is proved to contribute the biggest daily exposure to air pollutants according to the University of California. Car filters are not very good at filtering out PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 particles from vehicle emissions as they were originally designed to catch large particles like dust and pollen. Gas filtration is non-existence even today in any vehicle, as a result, drivers and vehicle passengers breathe notorious toxic fumes.

Although I believe that if you live in a city and you work in the same city, you should find a better way to commute, for some people this is not an option. Consequently, they need to find a way to protect themselves and mitigate their exposure to air pollution.

Aether Air HA30 is an in-vehicle air purifier capable of filtering particulate matter and eliminating nitrogen dioxide (NO2) among other chemicals.

It uses the same technology as the HA500 domestic purifier but in a smaller package. The D-Orbital Nano Oxide (DNO) filter, which is an innovative filtration system invented by the founding CTO of Oxford Catalyst plc (a leader in novel industrial catalysts)” and a HEPA 13 filter.

Read More »

How to Use CO2 Monitors

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

I see a lot of pictures on social media platforms where people measure Carbon Dioxide (CO2) concentrations in indoor environments incorrectly.

Read More »