The Role of IoT in Enhancing Indoor Air Quality
Whenever the topic of air quality comes up, it’s easy to think it’s limited to the fumes emitted by factories or car exhausts on a busy highway. Rarely does indoor air quality at manufacturing facilities and workshops gain as much interest despite its major effects on worker health and safety.
Both short- and long-term exposure to poor indoor air quality causes an increased risk of health issues such as respiratory diseases, heart disease, deficits in cognition, and cancer. This is not to mention the effects it has on the workers’ mental health and morale, which could translate to an overall reduction in productivity.
What is Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)?
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) refers to the quality of the air restricted in movement within enclosed or semi-enclosed spaces. While outside air is regularly exchanged and circulated with surrounding regions through wind, indoor air is at a much higher risk of becoming stale and high in concentration of manufactured and naturally occurring toxins.
Fumes, vapors, and airborne particles produced during industrial manufacturing processes can quickly accumulate if you don’t install proper ventilation systems. However, poor IAQ can also result from just the worker being inside the building for hours at a time, increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, humidity, and airborne pathogens in the air. That’s why it’s important to rely on specialized sensors to constantly monitor your indoor environments, sending out real-time alerts at dangerous concentrations of toxins.
How IoT Technologies Transform IAQ Monitoring
Traditional air quality sensors still require a person to read the data and respond accordingly. This often leaves a gap between when the air quality becomes bad and when the human worker is able to remedy it through ventilation or changing out filters.
Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, a lot of the indoor air quality monitoring process has become automated, resulting in healthier environments that aren’t reliant on manual surveillance of conditions. IoT air quality sensors don’t only send out alerts, they can act autonomously preventing the air quality from worsening beyond a particular point either by turning up the HVAC system or manually opening windows.
Key Air Quality Parameters Monitored by IoT
Depending on the environment in question, like schools, offices, commercial spaces, or manufacturing facilities, you might need to set your IoT sensors to monitor different parameters. However, there are a few key indoor air quality metrics that are closely intertwined with people’s health and well-being, including:
Carbon Dioxide: CO₂ levels must be kept between 400 and 1000 ppm (parts per million) to avoid symptoms like headaches, fatigue, and drowsiness.
Carbon Monoxide: CO levels must be kept under 9 ppm for a maximum of 8 hours of exposure and under 25 ppm for one hour of exposure.
Fine Particle Matter: Particles that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5) must be kept below 12 microns per cubic meter to avoid the risk of allergies or exacerbating pre-existing breathing issues.
Relative Humidity: Indoor humidity is ideally kept between 30% and 50%. Anything higher promotes the growth of dust mites, fungi, and bacteria which could lead to nose, ear, and throat irritation.
Benefits of IoT for Indoor Air Quality
Investing in an IoT network to monitor your indoor air quality has many benefits over depending on traditional means, such as:
Remote Monitoring Capabilities: Unlike their traditional counterparts, IoT sensors all report back to a centralized cloud where you can keep track of indoor conditions without needing to visit the site in person.
Real-Time Data Visualization: Visualizing data lets you oversee multiple indoor air quality parameters and how they relate to one another in real-time. This allows for a proactive approach to problem-solving through swift intervention and system adjustments.
Smart Building Automation: IoT devices would respond on their own to changes in the indoor environment; automatically turning up your ventilation systems upon an increase in foot traffic, adjusting the indoor temperature, and managing humidity levels.
Historical Data Analysis: By keeping track of past recordings, you’d be able to constantly improve your IAQ system. Furthermore, historical data is sometimes necessary to obtain third-party certifications and comply with local regulations.
Importance of Sensor Accuracy in IoT Systems
The difference between good and poor IAQ can be just a few parts per million or a minor increase in humidity that’s hard to notice until it’s too late. Accuracy in IoT sensors is necessary to ensure you’re getting an unambiguous picture of the air quality in your indoor environments.
Sensors with great uncertainty in their real-time data won’t respond properly to changes in the environment, letting existing air quality issues get worse before they’re fixed. In highly controlled and sensitive environments, whether it’s a school, a laboratory, or a manufacturing facility, you could be endangering the health of the people spending long hours on-premises daily.
Business Advantages of Maintaining Optimal IAQ
Investing in an indoor air quality monitoring system using commercial IoT and automation can have a high return on investment in terms of increased worker productivity, satisfaction, and retention; an enhanced brand reputation that’s attractive to business partners and clients, as well as a reduction in utility bills due to overworking your HVAC system or frequent renovations because of humidity damages.
Also, being able to prove that you’re able to maintain optimal IAQ simplifies the process of obtaining certain labels or certifications, like the ISO 14644 Cleanroom certification for manufacturers.
Conclusion and Future Outlook for IoT in IAQ
Indoor air quality is an often-neglected aspect of designing healthier indoor environments, but poor air quality has countless detrimental side effects on the physical and mental health and well-being of those who regularly frequent your building. IoT air quality monitoring helps you stay on top of some of the most common indoor pollutants like CO2, CO, fine airborne particles, and humidity levels, to maintain optimal IAQ.
However, you’ll need to work with a trusted provider of air quality sensor IoT to avoid the pitfalls of inaccurate data and low-quality results. This is where Attune comes into play! With 45 IoT patents, we bring new levels of intelligence to managing indoor air quality by connecting all monitoring to one, easy-to-use online platform.
Embrace the digital revolution in your physical spaces by scheduling a free demo with Attune and learning more about our innovative solutions for IAQ.
