Breeze Technologies / Smart sensors for air quality monitoring and improvement
Country of development/application:
Germany
Scope of innovation
☒ Office work
☒ Production / Service supply process
Sector-specific
☐ Yes / please, specify sector(s):
☒ No (relevant for all sectors)
Description of the needs
Indoor air quality has been a long overlooked issue in comparison to outdoor air pollution. Just because indoor air pollution can be harder to detect, however, doesn’t mean it’s harmless: the concentrations of some pollutants can be between 2 to 10 times higher indoors than outdoors.
Indoor air pollution is a major health risk. Studies found that bad indoor air quality can decrease workplace productivity by more than 50 percent, while increasing the average sickness absence rate by up to 52 percent.
Apart from damaging respiratory and circulatory systems, air pollution has been found to have negative cognitive effects on individuals: from reduced memory, impaired concentration, and lower decision-making capabilities to decreased language and mathematical abilities. Aside from impacting productivity, poor indoor air quality has been linked to the so called “Sick Building Syndrome”. While the specific causes are unknown, it is believed that poor ventilation and chemical contaminants such as Volatile Organic compounds (VOCs) are to be blamed. VOCs are typically found in higher concentrations indoors. These compounds are emitted from interior products and building materials such as furniture, plastics, wallpapers, cleaning materials, carpeting, copy machines, synthetic fragrances and tobacco smoke. Exposure to VOCs results in flu-like symptoms, such as headaches, dry cough, fever, chills, chest tightness, dry or itchy skin, dizziness, nausea, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and sensitivity to odours. The symptoms usually subside once the individual leaves the building.
Breeze Technologies provides hyperlocal air quality and climate data through smart, affordable indoor and outdoor sensors, as well as actionable environmental intelligence for corporates and cities. Breeze offers a simple and easy-to-use user interface. For businesses, it explains the effects of the current air quality situation, defines possible improvements using different tools and methods and also provides a marketplace with vendors offering air quality improvement solutions. For cities, this solution gives the planning and environmental departments access to holistic and high-resolution live data. It also offers a standardized application programming interface and is integrable with standard industry solutions like building management systems and business intelligence software. With its citizen portal, Breeze provides the public with access to the data and creates a platform for open dialogue with the government.
Indoor air quality can be monitored, managed, and optimized. Breeze Technologies offer a 3-step solution for handling indoor air quality:
1) Monitor: Breeze Technologies’ approach for measuring indoor air pollution is different from others on the market. It is focused not only indoors, but also outdoors, because pollutants are capable of travelling through both areas. As outdoor air quality has a measurable influence on indoor air quality, the company uses sensors both in and outside of its customers’ buildings. Boasting a small form factor, these high-end, lower-cost sensors monitor all major pollutants.
2) Manage: the Breeze Environmental Intelligence Cloud analyzes and presents real-time quality data through dashboards, visualizations, and threshold analyses. This ultimately allows for accurate situational awareness for the respective workplace by identifying problems, trends, and short- and long-term events for on which to base clean air actions.
3) Optimize: all environmental factors and parameters at a workplace (such as: are windows openable, what ventilation system is used, what is the height of the premises, how is the space in the building used, etc.) are taken into account. Based on this information, individual strategies to create optimal conditions are developed.
Description of the solution
Breeze Technologies offers high-end, lower-cost sensors which measure all major indoor pollutants, including:
• Temperature and Humidity;
• Carbon Monoxide (CO);
• Carbon Dioxide (CO2);
• Nitric Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide (NOx);
• Particulate Matter (PM10 and PM2.5);
• Sulphur Dioxide (SO2);
• Ozone (O3);
• Ammonia (NH3);
• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
Each air quality sensor measures these most common air pollutants. For more ambitious projects, Breeze Technologies’ environmental sensing platform is extendable to include additional pollutants. Proprietary on-device data management ensures data integrity. Thanks to predictive maintenance features in the cloud platform, sensing deviations are detected in order to ensure highest data accuracy.
Main characteristics of Breeze Technologies’ air quality sensors:
• COMPREHENSIVE MEASUREMENT
Each air quality sensor measures the most common air pollutants. For more ambitious projects, the measurement platform can be extended to detect additional parameters.
• MULTIPLE CONNECTIVITY OPTIONS
Local air quality is measured every 30 seconds and information is transmitted via various connectivity options. The real-time data help triggering immediate actions in such a smart infrastructure. The air quality sensors support the latest connectivity standards for smart building and smart city projects: whether the customer prefers to use his existing infrastructure with WiFi air quality sensors, set up long-range infrastructure networks with LoRa air quality sensors or is looking for fully autonomous sensors using the cellular network for data transmission.
• SIMPLE SETUP
The sensors are designed to simply work. They come already configured to stream gathered data directly into the account of the customer on Breeze Technologies’ Environmental Intelligence Platform. From there the customer is able to dive into the data or export it via the application programming interface.
• SMALL SIZE & LOW COST
The small size of the quality sensors makes it possible to install them virtually anywhere. They can be installed on walls, street lights and other city furniture. Breeze Technologies’ air quality sensors are up to 1.000 times cheaper than existing monitoring infrastructure. This makes hyperlocal air quality data gathering viable for nearly everyone.
The information can be presented real-time in a web-based monitoring app, which is available on any web-enabled device, for instance smart screens and tablets. This allows for transparency and open communication within the team on the health efforts in the office. Real-time air quality data can be communicated with the Air Quality Monitor App. Dashboards, visualizations, and threshold analyses help the management to understand air quality in the premises and make better, informed decisions for the health and productivity of the employees. Breeze Technologies’ award-winning cloud calibration technology re-calibrates data gathered from our sensors in real-time, to ensure highest data quality and accuracy.
• REDUNDANCY AND PERFORMANCE
Larger deployments of air quality sensors can produce a lot of datasets. This is why the cloud-based Environmental Intelligence Platform is designed to be highly scalable, to always deliver top-notch performance. Data is backed-up regularly and stored on redundant infrastructure.
• REAL-TIME CALIBRATION AND PLAUSIBILITY CHECKS
Thanks to Breeze Technologies’ cloud calibration engine, sensor data is assessed and calibrated in real-time. This means that customer will not have to worry about on-site calibration and sensor maintenance; the company contacts him in case he needs to take any action.
• INTEGRABLE VIA EASY-TO-USE APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE
Real-time and historic sensor data can be streamed into smart city and building management platforms. Through a powerful application programming interface, the customer also has access to aggregated averages and benchmarks according to international standards.
The starter kit includes:
• 1 Breeze indoor air quality sensor-as-a-service (calibrated measurement of temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) for one year (rental);
• Subscription for the Breeze Environmental Intelligence Cloud for 1 year, including the Coronavirus prevention monitor app, and all other functionalities;
• Support by phone and email.
Price:
• 590 EUR net (1st year)
• 290 EUR net (subscription from year 2 onwards)
Description of the effect
BENEFITS FOR FACILITY MANAGERS
Breeze Technologies’ solution is the answer to facility managers’ indoor air quality challenges. The indoor air quality monitoring and management solutions enable swift receive of ongoing real-time measurements. Facility managers is notified about issues worth his attention and supported in understanding the situation and swiftly dealing with challenges.
• FAST DEPLOYMENT
Breeze’s indoor air quality monitoring and management solutions can be deployed fast and immediately show results, based on the most recent knowledge of indoor air quality and its effects.
• COST SAVINGS
Breeze Technologies’ solutions are based on Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud technology, making air quality monitoring finally affordable.
• LESS WORK
Breeze Technologies’ air quality monitoring solutions simply work. When there is an issue that is worth the customer’s attention, he is proactively notified.
FOR EMPLOYEE WELLBEING MANAGERS
Office environment is key to staff’s health, wellbeing and productivity, every one of them breathing about 11,000 litres of air every day. Therefore, office air quality is an important factor in the working life. Breeze Technologies supports managers in creating a holistic picture of the air quality in their offices, identifying challenges and implementing the most efficient and effective solutions to improve the situation.
• UNDERSTANDABLE DATA
Managers are not required to have a degree in environmental sciences or chemistry. Data are presented in understandable way and notifications in case of situations that require manager’s attention are provided.
• ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
In case of a problem with the office air quality, Breeze Technologies provide support by identifying the most efficient and effective possible interventions and connecting the manager with the right solution providers.
GENERAL BENEFITS:
• Fast deployment: plug in the sensor, set up the screen and you are ready to start.
• Indoor air quality data, in real-time thanks to Breeze Technologies’ award-winning indoor air quality management suite.
• Power to the users: colleagues and co-workers can be involved in risks mitigation.
• Real-time evaluation of respiratory diseases (such as coronavirus) spread risk: based on latest medical research, based on CO2 concentrations and other parameters.
• Artificial intelligence at your fingertips: recognise and filter out short-term events.
• Calibrated data based on professional-grade monitoring equipment.
• 1 000 times cheaper and 50 000 times smaller than industry standard solutions.
Company/companies that developed/implemented/offer the innovation
Breeze Technologies provide an environmental intelligence platform: it delivers hyperlocal comprehensive and accurate air quality data from public and private data sources and low-cost sensors, as well as insights based on recent scientific and medical studies and actionable recommendations from a growing, self-learning catalogue of more than 3.500 interventions. Breeze’s platform is deployed in Germany’s two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg, as well as in a growing number of international corporates including Miele and Deutsche Telekom.
Breeze Technologies provide an environmental intelligence platform: it delivers hyperlocal comprehensive and accurate air quality data from public and private data sources and low-cost sensors, as well as insights based on recent scientific and medical studies and actionable recommendations from a growing, self-learning catalogue of more than 3.500 interventions. Breeze’s platform is deployed in Germany’s two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg, as well as in a growing number of international corporates including Miele and Deutsche Telekom.
Breeze Technologies UG
Head office: Harburger Schloßstraße 6-12, 21079 Hamburg, Germany
Phone: +49 40 766 292 262
Email: hello@breeze-technologies.de
Website https://www.breeze-technologies.de/
Additional information