Where's the data? Look outside your window -- have you ever wondered what the quality of the air is out there? I mean RIGHT. OUT. THERE. 12 inches from your face. If so, you are out of luck. The air quality data collected by the government is likely sampled from far, far away and then applied to you on a regional level, almost completely useless from the standpoint of trying to understand or change the local dynamics of pollution that affect you. Not good. If you're interested in joining a community of people who are going to change that, you are in the right place!
What is it?
The Air Quality Egg is a sensor system designed to allow anyone to collect very high resolution readings of NO2 and CO concentrations outside of their home. These two gases are the most indicative elements related to urban air pollution that are sense-able by inexpensive, DIY sensors.
Community
The Air Quality Egg is developed by a community effort, born out of groups from the Internet of Things Meetups in NYC and Amsterdam. We are designers, technologists, developers, architects, students, and artists. Read about the history of the development of this project here and here.
The product development conversation, as well as a fair bit of the philosophical arguments, happens in our Google Group. We also have a wiki.
![]()
How it works
1) Outdoor sensors: A small electronic sensing system plug into the wall and sits outside your home taking regular readings. It has an RF transmitter, which sends the data wirelessly to an Egg-shaped base station inside.
2) Egg base station: An Egg-shaped base station, which gives this project its name, receives the wirelessly transmitted data from the sensor box outside. It then relays that data to the Internet via a wired Ethernet connection. The Egg also acts as a User Interface, so it also has an LED light and a button. These are configurable by applications which will be developed in the future by the community.
3) Data sent to Internet: The air quality data will be sent in real-time to Pachube, an open data service, which both stores and provides free access to the data. The service includes embeddable graphs and the ability to generate triggers for tweets and SMS alerts, as well as a robust API which allows for developers in the community to unlock the potential of this new dataset by building mashups, maps, and applications.
![]()
Where we are now
The Egg's sensor system has been prototyped and refined several times. The current iteration which will go to production has been designed by Joe Saavedra, building on work from a previous project, Citizensensor.cc. The wireless system has been designed by WickedDevice, who will also be managing the production of the finished Egg system.
At the Citizen Cyberscience Summit in London in January, we were able to deploy a small number of Egg sensor boxes and saw our first data collection. We are slowly getting a small run of prototype-level sensor boxes into the hands of beta testers (example: https://pachube.com/feeds/48307). We are running workshops in London and Amsterdam which will have people building up their own units and bringing them home.
![]()
How we'll build it
The funding level we are seeking will allow us to achieve the necessary volumes to be able to design and tool custom hardware to bring the price into an affordable range.
Step 1) 3-6 weeks. The current prototype design will be consolidated into a single board by Dirk Swart and Vic Aprea of WickedDevice, who have already done customized volume runs of the Nanode, the open source microcontroller board which provides the platform for the Egg. The Egg enclosure / injection molding will also be developed at this time, based on 3D print runs we've done and will iterate on. A small run of completed test units will be produced in-house to verify the compatibility of the design.
Step 2) 5 weeks. Production. The verified designs will go to the same volume manufacturer who has done previous runs of the Nanode board. A manufacturer for the enclosure will be sourced and contracted at this time.
Step 3) 2 weeks. Assembly/Delivery.
Total: Up to 13 weeks. Estimated delivery: July.
What's next?
Applications: Each Egg that comes online contributes data that, in aggregate, will provide what is essentially an "air quality API". This will be a platform for web developers who want to apply this information in innovative ways via web apps, mobile apps, visualizations, interactive installations, and more. The Egg base station also has the ability to convey information through a colored light and also has a button for user feedback. These elements can be programmed and re-programmed for all kinds of interactions.
Mobile: Mobilizing sensors opens up an entire new layer of information for people. Development of a solution that incorporates benefits to the community as well as the individual gets more complicated for various reasons beyond just platform, code, and hardware, but we will work through them.
More info:
Good article discussing the AirQualityEgg's implications for journalism by @javaun
.
No comments:
Post a Comment