At this present unprecedented time, the main topic for many discussions is COVID-19 and how it has affected your business and working methods. Data sources have shown concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), a pollutant mainly emitted by road transport have decreased in many European cities where lockdown measures have been implemented. With lockdown on places of work, shopping malls, schools, restaurants, public transport and factories, a decrease of other harmful particulate matter will also be expected, although not enough data is available yet.
Exposure to air pollution can lead to adverse health effects, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. A number of health authorities have warned that those with certain pre-existing conditions, such as respiratory illnesses, may have increased vulnerability to COVID-19.
Before the pandemic, open plan offices and hot desking were becoming the norm. However, with the controlled process of slowly getting back to work, social distancing, partitions and ventilation are becoming important factors for companies to manage. Ventilation systems are becoming important to ensure there is circulation of fresh air in offices and buildings.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the virus is primarily through respiratory droplets that settle on surface areas and spread through human contact rather than airborne. Whilst it is not clear if ventilation systems contribute to the spread of the virus, it is not unreasonable to assume particles may circulate through the system and spread. Other ‘air blowing’ type equipment such as hand dryers may also contribute. There are guidelines for engineers to manage circulation of HVAC systems to reduce the risk. This is based on increasing the rate at which the outside air is drawn into the building and reduce the recirculation modes in systems.
The most common advice given is to open windows and let fresh air into the building and your homes. For environments where this is not possible, such as, aeroplanes, hospitals and buildings with internal offices, the use of high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters is recommended. Other types of cleaning systems, such as Ultra-Violet light may not be cost effective or possible to install.
To minimise the risk of spreading COVID-19, the advice given is to work from home as much as possible. This has now been the case for majority of the office workers in the lockdown countries with no clear indication of returning to normality for a while yet.
So, why may we be repeating what you may have already read about or heard from your own sources?
- Mesh-Net have developed many products for our clients. They have a range of very useful sensors that can be connected wirelessly to your ventilation systems or be used independently to monitor the environment. If this may be of interest, please contact us and we will be happy to assist you.
- Mesh-Net have developed the WiCub and WiCub 2 products that are not tied into any system and operate independently, monitoring the air around you and providing useful timestamped information. In particular, WiCub 2 also measure the Indoor Air Quality of your home or your office.
With ‘home working’ becoming the norm in these times, WiCub 2 may prove to be a very useful sensor to keep track of the quality of air in your ‘office’ and provide the notifications to trigger you to open your windows and let fresh air in. With the emoji based display, it is very easy to notice when the quality of air is suspect.
WiCub 2 is available from Amazon as a very cost effective way to track the quality of air around you. It is a small investment to provide you with assurance and also teach your family members on the importance of air circulations in homes.
About Mesh-Net
With over 30 years of experience in wireless, sensor and radio network applications, Mesh-Net Ltd offers design experience in low power radio sensors and RF networks to meet the requirements across many industries including Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), Energy Management, Building Management, Street Lighting, Process Control, Logistics and Food Monitoring. We have developed networks ranging from push only through request-acknowledge all the way to full Mesh networks.
We offer design services for custom product development with expertise in hardware, firmware, mobile Apps and web based applications. We can manage your developments and take them all the way to volume manufacturing, off-shore if required.
Feel free to send us a message or contact us on sales@mesh-net.co.uk