A low-cost air quality monitoring system based on Internet of Things for smart homes

Abstract

Global climate change and COVID-19 have changed our social and business life. People spend most of their daily lives indoors. Low-cost devices can monitor indoor air quality (IAQ) and reduce health problems caused by air pollutants. This study proposes a real-time and low-cost air quality monitoring system for smart homes based on Internet of Things (IoT). The developed IoT-based monitoring system is portable and provides users with real-time data transfer about IAQ. During the COVID-19 period, air quality data were collected from the kitchen, bedroom and balcony of their home, where a family of 5 spend most of their time. As a result of the analyzes, it has been determined that indoor particulate matter is mainly caused by outdoor infiltration and cooking emissions, and the CO2 value can rise well above the permissible health limits in case of insufficient ventilation due to night sleep activity. The obtained results show that the developed measuring devices may be suitable for measurement-based indoor air quality management. In addition, the proposed low-cost measurement system compared to existing systems; It has advantages such as modularity, scalability, low cost, portability, easy installation and open-source technologies.