IoT Solutions Provide Breath of Fresh Air for Indoor Environments

We hear a lot about outdoor air pollution and understandably so. But people spend significantly more time indoors—up to 90 percent of the time for Americans, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—and major health risks can originate if the air inside homes, offices, shops, gyms and restaurants is not fresh and clean. At the extreme end of the scale, indoor air pollution causes more than 3.2 million premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.

The U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Services lists sources of indoor pollution originating from human activities within buildings, such as smoking, burning solid fuels, cooking and cleaning, vapors from building and construction materials, equipment and furniture, and biological contaminants, such as mold, viruses or allergens.

Many of these contaminants are impossible to detect without technology. For example, the carbon monoxide generated by gas heaters is odorless. Vented properly, this exhaust gas is safe and in cases of bad leaks, conventional carbon monoxide alarms warn when levels become dangerous. But things can quickly turn bad if there’s a persistent low-level leak below the threshold of conventional alarms. While such levels are unlikely to be fatal, the effects of long-term carbon monoxide exposure have been linked to serious symptoms such as musculoskeletal injury, fatigue and memory loss.

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Fortunately, the Internet of Things (IoT) offers a solution. The network offers a more nuanced and timely response to potential hazards, especially cases of long-term, low-level exposure to pollution. Recent advances in wireless tech have helped create a variety of scalable solutions for indoor air quality measurement and monitoring. These advances allow the flexible placement of a wide array of sensors, independent of local IT networks. Combined with intelligent analysis, such data enables us to better understand the factors influencing indoor air quality.

Improving Environmental Conditions Indoors

Foundational IoT tech such as Bluetooth LE suits compact, battery-powered sensors sampling the air throughout a building while low-power Wi-Fi technology is a good option for air quality sensors that can leverage existing Wi-Fi access points. Both technologies can transmit data to suitably resourced Wi-Fi gateways, which in turn can forward it to the cloud for remote access. Alternatively, building-wide Bluetooth LE networks can transmit to cellular IoT gateways which can forward data to the cloud independently of Wi-Fi.

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Because wireless solutions require no cabling, they are simple to integrate into new builds or retrofit into existing buildings. A lack of physical wires makes it easy to locate sensors strategically; for example, installing carbon monoxide sensors close to fossil-fuel heaters or in rooms with poor airflow.

A key advantage of the new generation of sensors compared with traditional types is the continuous flow of data they provide. This enables the identification of long-term air quality trends for a given building or premises leading to precise control. For example, based on lots of historical data, additional air purification could be automatically triggered over summer periods when pollen counts are predicted to be higher, or increased ventilation and heat could be triggered when cold and humidity would otherwise combine to encourage mold growth.

Edge computing capabilities enable today’s IoT devices to filter this continuous stream of data and only forward information to a smartphone, gateway or directly to the cloud when action to change humidity, temperature, ventilation or purification is necessary. This reduces energy consumption, as well as data charges if the device is using a regulated radio spectrum.

The IoT can be integrated with smart air purification, filtration systems and intelligent heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) to build-in flexibility and precision. For example, if humidity starts to rise—encouraging mold—HVAC can boost moisture removal. Or when sensors detect carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)—which present one of the most serious airborne threats to human health—or other contaminants in the air, integrated systems can automatically boost filtration.

Widely used in paints and varnishes, as well as cleaning, disinfecting and degreasing products, concentrations of VOCs can be up to ten times higher indoors than out and can lead to major health issues, including headaches, nausea and potential damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, according to the EPA.

Providing a Clean-Air Boost to Education

Commercial wireless air quality monitoring solutions are entering the market and demonstrating positive results. In New Zealand, for example, research correlating learning improvements for students to the quality of their indoor environments led to the launch of the Te Haratau project, an initiative by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

“We found continuously monitoring a range of indoor environmental variables could result in [better] health, productivity and staff retention - potential benefits far too important for any organization to ignore,” said Peter Pooran, CEO of AirSuite.

In 2023, AirSuite launched an indoor monitor designed to detect and record a range of environmental variables that can affect the health and productivity of people in commercial, industrial and domestic settings. The AirSuite Glance employs a range of sensors to monitor carbon dioxide, VOCs, temperature and humidity (as well as sound, light levels and air pressure).

AirSuite uses Bluetooth LE connectivity provided by Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52840 System-on-Chip (SoC) to transmit the data directly to the user’s smartphone every minute and the LTE-M or NB-IoT (cellular IoT) connectivity of the Nordic nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP) sends relevant data to the cloud at least every 15 minutes. Through the dedicated app and web platform, users can oversee and receive notifications when environmental metrics surpass or fall below predetermined thresholds.

Pooran believes devices like the AirSuite Glance enable organizations to provide the optimal environment for their most valuable asset, the staff. He acknowledges that none of this would be possible unless the collected data was reliably and securely transmitted over a wireless network.

“Wireless connectivity can provide near real-time responsiveness for air quality monitoring, which is necessary as environmental factors can change rapidly - for instance, increased carbon dioxide levels rising [from human breathing] in crowded meeting rooms,” Pooran said. “These alerts enable immediate interventions, which is not attainable through historical data analysis alone.”

Monitoring Air Quality in Smart Buildings

Elsewhere, an indoor environmental and air quality solution developed by leading French IoT sensor specialist Adeunis is designed for use in smart buildings. The Comfort and Comfort Serenity devices employ temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and VOC sensors, delivering near real-time data to the cloud. Powered by Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP, they provide seamless cellular IoT connectivity supporting both NB-IoT and LTE-M networks.

“With our sensors, building supervisors gain immediate access to crucial data on potential exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide or VOCs,” said Catalina Raba Mora, RF Hardware Developer at Adeunis. “These can have detrimental health effects so monitoring and maintaining safe levels. Furthermore, our devices ensure optimal comfort for building occupants through precise temperature and humidity measurements.”

Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP features a 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 dedicated application processor that provides ample processing power to manage the suite of sensors integrated into the COMFORT and COMFORT Serenity devices.

Both Adeunis devices employ an intuitive Android application with a near-field communication (NFC) interface for streamlined network and application configuration. Once the device data is transmitted to the cloud using the nRF9160 SiP, users can review and manage the information. The cloud server can provide comprehensive insights into the operational status of sensors, battery life, network quality and data reception. Users can delegate device management, remotely configure devices and take necessary actions based on the collected data.

“The nRF9160’s support of both LTE-M and NB-IoT technologies in a single SiP offers unparalleled flexibility to our global customers,” said Mora. “Moreover, the Nordic SiP’s exceptional low power capabilities were a decisive factor. With companies employing multiple sensors in each building, maximizing battery life was crucial. Our devices can achieve a remarkable battery lifespan of 15 years.”

In addition to detecting carbon dioxide and VOCs, wireless air quality monitoring can be used to identify other potentially hazardous properties in indoor environments. For example, a preventive solution developed on behalf of P Alert Industries by India-based product engineering services organization, Technosphere, enables property managers and landlords to detect the presence of methamphetamine inside buildings.

If the smoking and/or manufacture of methamphetamine is detected in the property, the P Alert Meth Alarm will trigger an instant alarm activation to the user’s smartphone. Using the cellular IoT connectivity provided by the Nordic nRF9160 SiP, the alerts and real-time meth level reports are relayed to an associated secure cloud-based platform. The solution provides continuous monitoring and users can set the testing frequency.

“There is a growing awareness that contamination at even low levels of methamphetamine may cause negative health outcomes,” said James Hansen and Allan Spic, Directors of P Alert Industries. “The P Alert Meth Alarm provides an indication of the level of methamphetamine particles in a space and therefore contamination. Preventing meth contamination is more effective than trying to remediate contamination after it has occurred.”

The developers of P Alert Meth Alarm favored cellular IoT connectivity for several reasons. “We opted for NB-IoT/LTE-M cellular IoT connectivity over alternative LPWAN technologies to fast-track deployment in many countries across the globe, as well as optimize power consumption while avoiding the need for additional custom infrastructure such as gateways and servers,” says Bhaskar Rao, CEO of Technosphere.

Next-Gen Wireless Tech to Optimize Health

The next step for the global air quality monitoring system market, which is expected to be worth $6.9 billion by 2028, according to Markets and Markets, is the introduction of a new generation of wireless SoCs. Key examples are Nordic’s multiprotocol SoCs the nRF54H20 and nRF54L15. These SoCs reduce power consumption, enhance security (the SoCs are designed for PSA Level 3) and reduce total Bill-of-Materials (BoM) thanks to a high level of integration.

The nRF54L15 is ideal for low-power and cost-optimized end devices ready to support several protocols (including Bluetooth 5.4, Bluetooth NLC/Mesh 1.1, Matter, KNX IoT and more). The nRF54H20 is ideal for higher-end devices that need more processing power without compromising power consumption or for single-chip gateway applications (for example, combined with the nRF7002 companion IC for Wi-Fi).

Both SoCs present ample resources to support Machine Learning (ML). Such SoCs can use air quality data gathered over long periods to train ML models. The models are then applied to sensors which can in turn help intelligently adjust building systems and HVAC for the optimum health and comfort of occupants.

For example, building systems can autonomously adjust settings in response to certain events— such as switching on an air purifier and/or dehumidifier in anticipation of expected increased building occupancy at certain times of the day—and then switching off the equipment as people leave the building. Such equipment optimization reduces power consumption by avoiding unnecessary use while creating indoor environments that are finely tuned for occupants’ well-being.

Further integration of ML into wireless air quality monitoring promises to offer enhanced predictive insights, facilitating informed decisions for even better health outcomes. The result will be IoT solutions that provide a welcome breath of fresh air in all the indoor places we spend our lives.