Environmental Sensors for Clean Air with Ronan Cooney: The Tech Between Us, Season 3, Episode 8, Part 2

Transcript

Raymond Yin
Welcome back to The Tech Between Us. We are continuing our conversation about Environmental Sensors with Ronan Cooney, Head of Product at Ambisense. To catch up on part 1 of our conversation, visit our Empowering Innovation Together page.

Ronan, let's shift gears a little bit and look at more the engineering side of things. When we're looking at indoor air quality, what specific things are we looking at? We've talked a lot about CO2 and VOCs - volatile organic compounds - particulates. Are there specific levels or specific things that we're looking at when it comes to those chemicals?

Ronan Cooney
I think there are levels. And to be honest, Raymond, it can confuse the matter a lot when you start setting different levels for, you say, how many micrograms per meter cubed of PM10 is it? People's brains explode. That's where you have to have the experts really involved to go, we can do that in the background, and we can display to you that this is high, medium or low.

I think that's being a bit of an issue. I found anyway in the industry a bit that it's too numbers based than trying to just explain to people it's bad, and maybe how bad it is on a scale that they can understand. And getting into raw numbers of how many parts per billion of benzene is in a room. Again, people just gloss over, and they can't understand it and it's very hard to keep on top of it, you know?

Raymond Yin
Oh yeah.

Ronan Cooney
There was rules and regulations around CO2 levels during COVID. Are we in a pandemic state? There was 1500 parts per million of CO2 at one stage, then it was down to a 1000 and then I think about up to 1200. Being in the space can tell you so much. You go in, talk to people that are in there, I find it's awful stuffy in here all the time, or it's too hot, it's too cold. Again, it's things that they can feel straight off the bat is obviously really important, I think to start with. And then look at the conditions. Can you visually see it? Is there mold in certain corners? Is there paint flaking off walls? This is not a good environment to be in. What's the outdoor? We talked about already, are they in a very polluted area? So do they need to make sure, okay, you can't open the windows, or it's worse for you to open the windows, you'll need to get a mechanical ventilation system in place, and drive those things on. So, I think, the engineering part, that's, I guess where myself as a product person needs that to merge those two parts together to make sure the engineering is right and the accuracy is correct and we're doing all that work in the background, but then to transfer that into something that's understandable by the man on the street, that the science is not going to blow them away. And you're not going to get buy-in if you're going into a standard office and you're trying to promote indoor air quality and you start talking about PM and VOCs and terms like this alone, they don't know what you're talking, and it's very hard to get people bought into the importance of it. They just think it's too scientific, it's too technical. So, there's definitely that level of educating people definitely to a degree, but then making it very understandable and relatable to what's actually happening their spaces.

Raymond Yin
So as engineers, we work in specifications and numbers. The speeds and the feeds and whatnot. And so what you're saying is really, it's actually better than dumping all that raw data on somebody or decision maker or stakeholder, really just describe it more in terms of effects rather than pure raw numbers.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah. You need to do that in the background.

Raymond Yin
Sure.

Ronan Cooney
So, we can take that on and that's where you have to have the expertise and the experience to know what you're looking at. And, the regulations can still be driven by that. But, not that many people will read a 50 page indoor air quality documents that's just been released. They don't get too excited like we do.

Raymond Yin
Well, I've read one and I know you've read several, so what's that saying?

Ronan Cooney
Exactly. It just needs to be explainable. The engineering work has to go with it. We have a great team  in Ambisense and a great set of engineers and the technology has progressed so much even the last couple of years. You've really seen it driven on with the sensors and the accuracy and reliability that they have, which is brilliant to see. And, that's just continuing. We've just seen it more and more. Driving the cost down again to make the overall unit that we can build much more affordable to people. At Ambisense, really key to us is the data part. You know, we want to provide that data. The customer nearly doesn't need to know about the device or how it works, we can take care of all that. They can trust us to do that and then give them the output to go listen, the particulates that you have, basically dust particles, stuff like that is very bad in this space. You need to look at your carpet in here, it's too much and it seems to be kicking up dust during the day, and then they can action that. So again, giving them something that they can action then just going, you have 200 micrograms per meter cubed in here and they just fall over.

Raymond Yin
Yeah. That's that, is that good or bad?

Ronan Cooney
Yeah. They just don’t know. And that's where you just lose people and then you go, listen, this whole system's not for us. I'm not interested. And then it's gone, and your opportunity is gone.

Raymond Yin
Right. And, you mentioned sensors and designing in sensors and how sensors have advanced. When your engineers look at designing a new device or even updating a current device, what sorts of things do the engineers take into consideration when they select a sensor? Is it more of a power thing? Is it more of a size thing? What do they look at?

Ronan Cooney
So yeah, lots of different factors they can consider for us in Ambisense. We believe it needs to be wireless. I think that's the core, the version of it, again, just gives you that flexibility within a space, especially if you're retrofitting. So you're in a pre-built office, if you're looking to run wires and power it, it becomes a huge expense again. And then you've probably, you're not going to win that opportunity. Whereas if you have the battery powered version, you can put it where it needs to be. You pick the best space to monitor it within that room and take into consideration things like communication protocols and stuff like that as well. So the best signal coverage that you're going to get. But yeah, like cost and power and performance, I think it's like nearly every electronic device.

There's always way you can get a very expensive, highly accurate sensor and put into a device and nobody will buy it because it's a $1000 for each device and it's just too expensive. You have to have that balance. But it's been great because you see the sensor manufacturers, they realize this, they know that they're trying to push the cost down on sensors coming up with new variants and not at the cost of performance. So the performance is still there. The technology is well established these days. So stuff like NDIR for CO2 sensors is probably the minimum standard really these days. Whereas what we had around COVID time, there was a lot of this equivalent CO2 stuff, which was being interpreted from VOC sensors and it just wasn't acceptable sort of standard really to give people the data that they needed. So yeah, I think battery life obviously then comes into it. So if you have a wireless device your cost is at a certain price point, and then how long can you get out of that device? You need the granularity of data. So you need to look at how long are we going to transmit, how often are we going to transmit what is the key data that we need? Again, you see some indoor air quality devices and they've 10 sensors in them. I think it's probably too many. Do you need 10? Is there going to be enough information in that to give you more than the core of the five sensors might give you? So, there was a race, I suppose at some stages go, oh, well we've got 10, oh, we've got 12. Oh, we've got 15. And nobody understands the formaldehyde reading or why it's important, you know. So, there was definitely a piece on that I think of too far, and companies pushing it too much. And then there was a race to drive the cost down as well. But I think people are sort of seeing now it's the company you need; you really need to be involved with and what they can give you to make actionable changes. So again, it's not enough seeing a CO2 graph somewhere that you, it's a squiggly line. You don't really know it's good or bad or what's driving behaviors. And I think the education is increasing now, and people are starting to understand it a bit more and want more. And that's really what you want now is the industry to start pushing it more. And people go, okay, I've had these devices in for two years now. I know, know me, or I'm not getting value at this section. Why, what is the important thing about this data? And that's gold dust for product people. To get that feedback from customers and develop the new products that will give them those answers that they want and allow them to really improve their environments, you know?

Raymond Yin
Right. Yeah. And being in that combination of, maybe you’ve got to be able to have the right sensors and the right IoT sensor nodes in place to be able to collect the data. And then, to your point what do you do with the data on the backend? Taking that and making sense of it, as opposed to, like you said, these, these raw charts of CO2 and, is formaldehyde really a thing that's measured?

Ronan Cooney
It actually is, yeah. We've been approached a few times to try and develop a formaldehyde indoor air quality monitor. So certain environments it can be.

Raymond Yin
I can say if Mouser starts putting in formaldehyde sensors, I'm going to start working from home more often.

Ronan Cooney
And, the communications is obviously another core one. If you're in a space and you can't get the data out, well in our mind it's pretty useless. If it's a display, even on a unit, on the screen, all that usually we found is drive fear for people and to go, it's It's red, it's red! Better run out of the building screaming. You don’t what to do, you know? Panic sets in.

So for us, it should be nearly a hidden sort of thing. It blends into your environment and then it's up to somebody to manage that. So does somebody within that space is mandated to you look after this, you action, you open windows, simple thing if the CO2 is going too high or you see in the meeting room that it's gone very high, knock on the door, tell people, listen, can we take a break? Or can we ventilate the space or open windows or do whatever. So we sort of see at a basic level that the monitors are a management tool and people can manage the space and take ownership bit more. And again, it's that we spoke about briefly before is embedding it within the company, so having that policy in place, having the senior management behind it and know the importance of it, and then somebody to manage it in an ongoing way.

Raymond Yin
With all these sensors, the techniques of sensor fusion have been around for a while. I assume in order to kind of pull that integrated picture together, you guys use quite a few algorithms to integrate the data from the CO2 sensor from the VOC sensor, the temperature, the humidity, all this stuff into a single combined picture for your customers.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah. It's critical. And again, looking at the most basic level, temperature, is a huge driver of so many other factors. In our own office we had ESD mats on a workbench. So where people are doing soldering, you know, for taking the lateral static, just discharge and make sure we don't damage the boards. But one of the stations was in front of a window and we saw basically when the sun was beaming in that mat was generating a lot of VOCs within that space.

Raymond Yin
Really? Okay.

Ronan Cooney
So we were able to correlate just something as simple as sort of outdoor temperature, indoor temperature in the space with these spikes of VOCs that we saw there. So, again, simple fix. We just moved the mat to a different place, moved the station around, not, don't put anything near the window. And again, sometimes it's not going to cost a $100,000, put in a new ventilation system. It's just a very simple thing. But if we didn't have the data there, we wouldn't have seen it. And it's that correlation, like again, one sensor isn't going to probably tell you a whole lot. You have to look at everything in between and what's driving, is it a temperature issue that the building is generating itself, so the heating system or is it like solar gain? So what's the temperature and the sunlight outside that's driving that. Yeah, there's so many factors in there that all have to be considered together. And like that, that's when you're getting into big numbers and big properties, you have to have that machine learning and the algorithms that you were saying in place to manage that data because … I can't sit there and I keep correlating between the different graphs go, oh, look, the temperature is here and the CO2 or the VOCs are here.

Raymond Yin
Time to turn on the big red light.

Ronan Cooney
Exactly. Yeah. So you need that automation in place and again, the tools are out there and those skill sets are developing all the time. But yeah, like you have to have that fusion between the different sensors there. It's really vitally important of what's going on. Like we said before, like particulate is another one, of how many people were in the office that day. Even so stuff like occupancy sensor data or you could see, say the CO2 is very high in the space, the PM has gone up very high, so you get people moving around, so they're disturbing probably stuff in flooring and then you can piece together what's going on. So, the machine learning is a great tool and it's a hot topic at the moment. ChatGPT and all these sort of things have really put in the spotlight. But, you know, a lot of companies like us have been looking at the benefits of AI and machine learning for many years. So it's great to see it really drives the industry forward when it does get in the spotlight like that.

Raymond Yin
Yeah, and throughout of all of our Empowering Innovation Together program, we have seen that undercurrent of artificial intelligence, machine learning being used in so many different industries, in so many different areas. I was curious, going into our discussion here today, if machine learning was playing a part and clearly it is, and it sounds like you guys have been using it for quite a while to really make sense of this massive amount of data that you guys are collecting.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah. Big time. And it seems like an anomaly detection, it's a really valuable thing within a space of something. And again, when you're working remotely for us, say the data is there, but something strange is happening here, we can't be on site to know exactly what it is, but at least you can highlight that. And that anomaly detection is really key as well. Something strange is happening in this space all of a sudden and then to go, oh, we just painted in there and, you know, two weeks later VOCs are still through the roof. So whatever paint they used maybe was very bad. So yeah, like there's definitely huge value and it's, I think it's rich in every industry and everyone's lives, I think the, the AI sort of boom that we're seeing.

Raymond Yin
Absolutely. And you know, I think we've all played with ChatGPT, at least I have. I mean, you probably have as well just to see what it comes up with.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah, and it's real valuable too. I think everyone sort of sees that as ChatGPT, it's a great start. I think just being the consensus for most people that if you're looking for something, it's a great place to get a start going and get your creative juices maybe going and thinking about certain things. I don't think I build my business on it or trust it to that degree, but, it's definitely a tool that people will be using more often.

Raymond Yin
Yeah, absolutely. We're seeing that as well within our industry. For companies like yourself and people who are working with buildings and other companies to measure and monitor air quality, is there a certification or is there an overriding organization that is governing what's going on out there?

Ronan Cooney
There are bodies out there. So, I would say for devices themselves, the very first simple one in Europe anyways, like a CE marking to make sure that that device is not going to go on fire or something else. It’s been safety tested. You can rely on it.

Raymond Yin
Probably not a good thing.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah. Cause again, like devices were cropping up, left, right, and center, you don’t know where they came from. They looked a bit flimsy, no markings, no ads. It was a bit the wild west I think when COVID hit, and all sorts of devices came out. So, that's always a good first step to look at, but I think RESET is probably one of the most common standards and maybe people might know that a bit more. It's not perfect, I would say as a standard. And again, I think all the regulations and standards are improving all the time and they're catching up a bit more with the technology. They're sort of driving it and then they've really come together with a lot of the actual building standards and the construction standards.

So, WELL is another standard that people might know of. You can get your building WELL-certified and as part of that there's a whole indoor air quality section on it, and they're aligned with RESET as well. That's the hardware and certification body coming together, which is great to see. And then you're seeing more and more of the standards like LEED people might have heard of as well. And, Passive Housing and Energiesprong is another company that, that are based around Europe and the UK and this just standards of the housing and the installation. So again, having the data to back up the design that people have built. I know in the UK in particular; they're giving like a 10 year performance guarantee with that house. Okay. You're going to give that guarantee, you're going to need the data to show that it is achieving it or not.

Raymond Yin
That it's achievable.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah, exactly. These things have become more embedded into new buildings and expected by people now. How is the indoor record going to be monitored? Do we have energy readings and again, all automated that somebody's not having to go and dig through this data that it's all in one central location is really important. RESET is a great body and I think it's driving the standards there at the moment. I think there's other standards that are cropping up. You see smaller bodies here and there, but, if it's one central one that's everyone's aligned with makes the roll out of it's so much easier. So hopefully it can kick on.

Raymond Yin
Hopefully everything harmonizes, especially harmonizing globally, as well as on individual specifications and individual recommendations.

Ronan Cooney
And everyone thinks their standard is better than the other person's standard and we've made improvements to this and that, but just if everyone can align a bit more. The building regulations will drive it really, and what's standard they take on will drive everything else because they're such a big sector, the building and construction. Hopefully they can do it.

Raymond Yin
Let’s shift our focus towards the future. Our next question is brought to you by our sponsored partner, Honeywell, who is transforming how buildings operate and delivering product solutions for a smarter, safer, and more sustainable world. Explore more from them by visiting mouser.com/Honeywell.

Looking into the future, what area could benefit most from being more aware of indoor air quality and actually making a concerted effort to improve indoor air quality? What would you say would be the biggest impact?

Ronan Cooney
I think that's the construction industry. If they can embed indoor air quality sensors from the very start and even retrofitting, they're going to be the key really to all of this. That it's embedded from the very start, and they can put these sensors in and maintain them and the data. We're working already with some construction companies in Ireland around that, that they're embedding it into those construction, projects from the very start. And then they can give a password or whatever to an owner and they could have their account then, and they can see their own in their air quality and they can monitor it and things like that as well.

So, I think that has to be the biggest sort of industry that that's there. But, it's about people again, and people have to sort of see the value of it as an employer, of the spaces that you can give people, that they should be the most productive space as possible and healthy. People's health is obviously vital and, and the most important thing. And you need to provide that to your employees and your customers. And again, like I said earlier, I think it's not really acceptable to say, I didn't know about it anymore. The technology is there now, so people have to step up and really implement it.

Raymond Yin
That's interesting that you bring up construction because literally making, indoor air quality systems as ubiquitous as power and data, you know, every building has about a bazillion ethernet connectors in the walls. And making the indoor air quality, air quality system kind of an integral part of that whole building.

Ronan Cooney
Yeah, exactly. It's like smoke detection. It should really be seen just at that same level. You probably need more granularity maybe, with indoor air quality, depending on the building type or whatever, but that's how important it should be to people. It's not going to impact you today, but if you're working that environment every day for 10 years with a company, that building is definitely going to have had an impact on your long-term health. So, you know it's good that people should know that, and it should be very plain to see for employees and customers.

Raymond Yin
Absolutely.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Tech Between Us. To dive deeper into Environmental Sensors and explore Mouser’s rich content on this subject, visit our Empowering Innovation Together page for videos, technical articles, and more at mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

Sponsor Commercial: Honeywell
Providing industry-specific solutions for engineers worldwide, Honeywell’s broad product portfolio address the world’s toughest challenges - delivering products in applications ranging from aerospace defense, industrial, medical, transportation, and more.  Visit mouser.com/Honeywell.