A good quality small sensor air quality monitoring system should last 10 years or more, and of course certified monitoring stations (reference, FRM, FEM) should last much longer.
“How many air quality monitors do I need?” is a question we regularly hear, and the easy responses – “it depends”, “how big is your budget?” – are not very helpful. To give a better idea, it will depend on all these factors.
We have a little competition going on between our customers, even if they don’t know it: who can present us with the challenge of the most remote operation for continuously monitoring air quality.
Go for all of them! We often come across customers who are agonising over which sensor system – or even which technology – to use and we suggest a hybrid network.
Communities and industry are monitoring air quality around the same areas, so they both want the same thing, right? Er, no, not really ..
So how do you do it? Many presentations at the recent ASIC conference revolved around calibration of small sensor air quality systems, including that given by AQMesh Technical Business Development Manager, John Downie.
There’s no doubt that small sensor systems can have an advantage over their cumbersome reference station cousins – in terms of maintenance requirements. We are often asked about ‘service’ requirements for our pods and the honest answer is that the default position, in normal working conditions, is ‘none’. However ..
Our pods continue to be pretty popular among environmental and engineering consultancies, both here in the UK and further afield, so we asked some of them what appeals to them most about AQMesh. We were pleasantly surprised by the range of responses we received although there were a number of recurring themes.
We have some thoughts here at AQMesh about the common features of successful, well-run small sensor air quality monitoring projects. This is our list, but we’d love to hear your ideas.
Is it normal to get excited about a Publicly Available Standard? For us it feels like a long time coming, and this first step on the long road towards an ISO standard for small sensor air quality monitoring is very welcome.
Everyone loves holidays, whether Christmas or anything else, right? So what’s special about ‘air quality’ people? What we get so excited about are ‘free’ experiments, where distinct changes in activity help to peel away the layers of air pollution measured.
Hyperlocal air quality monitoring promises to fill in the gaps between sparse reference stations – great, lots more measurements. And each of your lovely small sensor monitoring stations can measure a dozen or more pollutants and environmental conditions – even better. Or is it?
This a great report, full of common sense and helpful advice, applicable globally, particularly where air quality monitoring is currently limited. Limited by budgets, logistics, and many factors discussed so eloquently at the ASIC Ghana conference last month.
Or how many air quality measurement points do I need? Annoying as it is, the answer is ‘it depends’.
Watching the ASIC Ghana conference presentations, it is striking that the same issues come up, whether monitoring in Africa, Europe or America.