Air quality Smart Place use case
BCP Smart Place use case: Air Quality - YouTube
Use case overview
This proof of concept project combined the expertise of two companies to deploy market-first IoT (Internet of Things)-connected air quality sensors that relay data to a back-end data visualisation dashboard.
The challenge
Poor air quality is considered to be one of the largest environmental risks to public health in the UK. Certain groups are more adversely affected than others, particularly the very young and old and those with certain pre-existing conditions.
Air quality is a key metric and indicator of wider environmental and public health conditions. Current data collection in the conurbation is manual, infrequent and unreliable.
As part of the challenge, BCP Smart Place worked with a start-up company to produce a market-first IoT-connected air quality sensor. The sensor is built in a modular fashion. This allows for easier maintenance and means we can easily add in more hardware functionality.
The sensors detect and record temperature, particulates, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Data is then read every fifteen minutes, and uploaded during the day every hour. The data is then sent to a data visualisation dashboard which is accessible and interactive, allowing users to view the calculated European Air Quality Index figure for each sensor.
Historical data can also be viewed through interactive graphs.
Why is this important?
In order to help people make sustainable changes we need to utilise technology that adds value at a local level, but that technology also needs to be affordable. In this case we have been working with companies that are developing more cost-effective air quality devices as well as those who can capture the data and make it more readily available to local people across a number of different platforms, helping them to make informed sustainable living choices.