Can sensor tech help keep office workers healthy?

Yodit Bekele Stanton worried about her daughter’s debilitating asthma. As a software developer in London, she knew data often held answers that were otherwise unnoticed or unseen, so she put a sensor in her backyard and began monitoring the air quality in her neighborhood, mapping the data against her daughter’s asthma attacks. The results were inconclusive, but Stanton was convinced that such sensors could be used to improve the places where people live, learn and work.

“Thankfully my daughter has grown out of her severe asthma, but air quality is now a passion project,” she said. In 2015, Stanton founded OpenSensors, which uses small, inexpensive, battery-operated sensors to monitor foot traffic, occupancy levels and air quality in the spaces we inhabit — particularly offices. Seven years later, after the global pandemic has changed the way we treat indoor spaces, the existence of this technology could not be better timed. Monitoring indoor air quality has become a critical tool in keeping people safe from Covid-19 and other airborne illnesses — particularly now that companies are encouraging workers to return to the office. Studies have shown that office occupancy levels affect indoor air quality and viral transmission.

Other recent studies have shown that the Covid-19 virus can spread through respiratory aerosols. In fact, airborne transmission may be the dominant form of transmission for several respiratory pathogens, including the Covid virus. In confined spaces, like offices, contaminated aerosols can build up over time, increasing the risk of transmission.

OpenSensor’s devices measure carbon dioxide using internet of things, or IoT, technology, in which sensors publish real-time data over a network. Respiration produces CO2, which is exhaled along with aerosols, so the sensors can be used to measure the buildup of exhaled air within a space — and therefore the potential level of pathogens. (Essentially, CO2 serves as a proxy for potentially high levels of pathogens.) This, in turn, allows building managers to monitor and adjust air quality as necessary.

CO2 levels build up through the day, often reaching peak levels of 2,000 parts per million late in the afternoon. To keep employees healthy, CO2 levels must be monitored throughout the day, not just once, as is the case with most organizations today, if they monitor CO2 at all.

The sensor signals are received by a router that transmits them back to an OpenSensors’ server over a cellular network. The company collates the data into a web-based dashboard or sends the data back to the customer’s own systems through an application. There are no cables involved. Companies plug in the router, called a gateway, and stick sensors where needed.

“OpenSensors is an overlay service that can be deployed separate from whoever’s handling the building management,” said Matt Hatton, a technology industry analyst focused on IoT, artificial intelligence and digital transformation, so tenants don’t need a landlord’s or building owner’s permission to use the technology.

Hatton believes that the market for indoor air quality monitoring is expected to grow by 20 times between now and 2030. “We’re still very early days,” he said.

Smith is a journalist with NYT©2022

The New York Times