There are a slew of apps and websites devoted to reporting air pollution in cities and major metropolitan areas both for general monitoring and record-keeping, but also to better inform residents about the risk to their health posed by their environment. However, air pollution is often measured on a city-wide scale, which can erase very large differences in pollution between different areas. A collaboration of researchers in New Jersey and Vellore, India, created air pollution monitoring kits connected to the cloud via Internet of Things (IoT) technology to share localized air pollution information on their accompanying mobile app 2019. Their research was formed in recognition that poor and middle-income communities often experience worse air quality compared to wealthier communities and that this discrepancy is not often well-represented in air quality reports for cities worldwide. The gas sensors developed in this study can be installed on specific streets, next to industrial centers, or on residential streets to report air pollution on that localized level. Their mobile app would be available on Androids and would allow pedestrians to better plan their routes. From their research, it appears that the app, as well as the kit itself, is still being developed as a prototype, though in the time since it was published, further optimization may have occurred. In order to be effective, the kit would need to be affordable to be used on a broad scale and the app made to be compatible with Apple products to cover the two primary operating systems for mobile phones worldwide.
Categories
Internet of Things, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies