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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Ranking of Cities by Air Pollution! Nope!

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments
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I have come to the conclusion that rankings of cities by air pollution are not accurate and they don’t reflect the real situation in large communities because if you are unlucky enough to have a careless neighbor that burns wood/garbage/etc or you live outside the Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTNs) and official AQ stations are far away from you then you are screwed!

Basically, your health is a subject of what others want, and there is little you can do to protect yourself. You can always stay indoors with purifies all over the house 24/7 and unable to open a window for oxygenated air to come inside. That is not correct as your freedom to open a window or walk outside your house and the right to breathe clean air are taken from you.

There are many studies talking about inequality in low-income communities. In a recent study researchers have even identified the fact that there are less trees around poor communities than in high-income ones.

Politicians marginalize the work-class constantly by refusing to find solutions to their problems. Some laws protect us from air pollution but they are not enforced. So far scientists have gathered hundred of evidence that tells us firmly that air pollution kills – more than 7 million people have died prematurely worldwide due to air pollution. Personally, death doesn’t scare me, but living a life with many medications and unable to function as a human being (Alzheimer’s among some of the most common diseases) is my biggest fear and air pollution can decrease the quality of life. It is hard to quantify morbidity which means the condition of suffering from a disease or medical condition. This is not the future I want for myself and the people around me and you shouldn’t too.

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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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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.

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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)

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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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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.

Review: Piera-7100 by Piera Systems

Sotirios Papathanasiou6 Comments

Recently, I shared an illustration that demonstrates, based on scientific research, how deep pollution particles can go into the human body.

Particulate matter (PM) are basically sneaky and invisible (to the naked eye) particles of various sizes that trigger inflammatory responses all over the human body depending on their size/origin and how deep inside us they can go. They are even able to destroy human tissue when the origin of the particles comes from the combustion of fossil fuel or biomass burning.

The smaller they get the easier it is to enter our bloodstream and affect every cell and organ in our body, even our brain. For this reason, it is very important to start monitoring the unregulated ultrafine particles aka nanoparticles or PM0.1 or UFP.

The IPS7100 by Piera Systems (a Canadian company) is a new generation low-cost laser scattering sensor capable of measuring those ultrafine particles PM0.1 but also fine particles PM0.3/PM0.5/PM1/PM2.5 and coarse particles PM5/PM10. In total, the 7100 series offers 7 output bins.

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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.

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Podcast Ep1: See The Air | Real Life Stories

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I am very happy to announce that I am launching a new series of Podcast episodes where people from all around the world will be able to share their experience with air pollution and how it affects their lives.

The episodes will be available in all big Podcast distributional channels like Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and Spreaker.

Episode 1 : London, UK – Traffic Pollution and LTNs

In the first episode, we will hear Ediz from London, UK. Ediz is a clean air campaigner and he and his family members have to breathe lots of traffic-related air pollution as his neighborhood is jammed by hundreds of cars every day.

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