As the world continues to live with COVID-19 intertwined into our daily lives, we are adapting to the new normal of social distancing and remote work. With the easing of shelter-in-place rules, folks are now looking at the possibility of returning to work and school, meeting friends, and in the U.S., exercising the right to assemble in public places. Amidst these re-openings, the proper use of masks has been shared by experts as one of the most effective ways to limit COVID-19 exposure.

This is our CTO, Paolo Micalizzi (right). Hailing from the picturesque town of Varese in northern Italy, Paolo’s father (left) runs a dental practice where he takes care of a good number of people’s dental health in Varese. When Italy was suddenly hit with the influx of coronavirus cases earlier in the year, he was forced to temporarily close his practice.

As an essential business, he eventually had to open his practice to respond to patients with dental emergencies. Given the shortage of masks that followed the lockdown, he was concerned with his office being a hotspot for infection without the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) for himself and his patients. Being a dental office, he also had to ensure that the protective equipment is able to block aerosols from respiration and water droplets from the dental work.

When Paolo shared his father’s situation with us, this presented a new unknown that we at Clarity were eager to accept as a challenge. Clarity was founded in 2014 as a response to a problem — filling in the data gaps in traditional air quality monitoring. We immediately began throwing ideas around for alternative solutions when N95 masks and face shields were not available. The idea of going back to our tinkering roots and helping Paolo’s father and essential health workers everywhere aligned with the core of why we do what we do — to help people.

Then it hit us. We had the space, the sensors, the curiosity, to run an experiment testing different PPEs, why don’t we just do it?

And so we did. Taking matters into our own hands, we took over one of our testing spaces to set up a makeshift experiment on the effectiveness of alternative PPE solutions. We bought a mannequin head, supplies off of Amazon, and got to work. Now, we’re doing the next best thing — sharing it with the rest of the world.

Whether you’re looking to purchase a mask, researching DIY protective gear, or a tinkerer and data nerd like us, read on to see how we set up the experiment and our results.

The set-up

DIY Toolkit

Download photos and files to build your own Scuba+HEPA filter mask ☞ https://bit.ly/3hPQZH1

Products Mentioned

Scuba facemask ☞ https://amzn.to/2BtwDT9
HEPA Filter ☞ https://amzn.to/2YpAHgn

The Results

Disclaimer: Clarity is not an expert in infectious disease and public health. This experiment is a passion project initiated by a group of engineers with experience in air quality monitoring. We highly recommend checking guidelines from vetted experts like the CDC and WHO for guidelines on how to protect you and your community from disease spread.

1. No mask

We blew aerosols at the mannequin head with no protective gear as a control. We saw an immediate spike in aerosols upon contact.

2. Surgical Mask

The surgical mask surprisingly showed just as high, if not more, of a spike in aerosol concentration as not wearing a mask in our experiment. This could be due to experimental errors or address the question if the mask protects the wearer or others. In recent studies, it has been shown that surgical masks are “are designed to protect people from the wearer”. As our experiment focused on the blowing aerosols at the wearer, the spike may indicate the varying directional effectiveness of different masks.

3. N95 Mask

The N95 mask was the most effective of the 4 masks we tried, protecting the user from oncoming aerosols. It also showed that wearing masks can not completely protect the user, only lower the risk of transmission. Since we are blowing aerosols directly into the face, some particles that are still able to travel past the mask.

4. FFP2 Mask

The FFP2 was not as effective as the N95 mask, but more effective than the surgical mask.

5. Scuba mask + HEPA Filter

The self-made Scuba mask and HEPA filter faired quite well compared to the other masks, performing only behind the N95 mask. Given that the much sought-after N95 mask is in a supply shortage, our proposed scuba mask and HEPA filter solution may work quite well for essential workers (especially health workers in high transmission places) without access to an N95 mask and face shield.

Takeaways

While we’re not experts in infectious disease, we hope that this experiment inspires you to take part in flattening the curve and find ways to prevent transmission. The lack of N95 masks should not deter us from doing our part in protecting others and ourselves from the spread of disease.

Thank you to all first responders, medical personnel, and scientists working at the forefront of disease prevention and treatment! We owe so much of our wellbeing to your selfless and tireless contribution — please wear masks in public to do our part in helping curb transmission. We’ve included a few links below to additional reading for those interested in more in-depth evidence and research on the effectiveness and proper use of masks.

We are also happy to report that we shipped our Scuba/HEPA contraption to Paolo’s father after this experiment and he was able to resume essential services at his dental practice!

Additional reading on mask effectiveness from official and academic sources:

• US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)’s Guide for COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions
• John Hopkins Medicine released an FAQ on face masks and coverings
• WHO’s repository of videos and infographics on proper mask use
• CDC’s Considerations for Wearing Cloth Face Coverings (updated frequently)

Disclaimer: Clarity is not an expert in infectious disease and public health. This experiment is a passion project initiated by a group of engineers with experience in air quality monitoring. We highly recommend checking guidelines from vetted experts like the CDC and WHO for guidelines on how to protect you and your community from disease spread.

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Clarity on Pollution & Coronavirus #2 | We tested protective masks effectiveness… and you can too! was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we post this blog, most of our daily lives have been disrupted by the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. During a time of uncertainty shrouded by fear, we are grateful for first responders, medical staff, and scientists everywhere at the frontline of this pandemic.

We have also had many people reach out to us with questions about how air pollution is affected by the outbreak. We thought we’d take some time to start a blog series to examine the relationship between air pollution and coronavirus COVID-19.

For this first post, we would like to share our first impressions of what’s been said in the press and our interactive mapping tool for anyone who would like to explore the relationship between air quality and COVID-19.

Are reduced human activities aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19 reducing air pollution?

Clarity’s initial opinion: Since the government lockdowns began in China and Northern Italy, satellite data has shown an observable reduction of air pollution in these regions (see below). With the usual pollution sources from industrial and transportation activity on pause, air quality data over the past few weeks suggest just how fast changes in human activities can lead to cleaner air.

We are conducting further analysis and will share our findings in the next post of this “air pollution and COVID-19” series. Stay tuned!

Does Air pollution make humans more vulnerable to COVID-19?

Clarity’s opinion: It’s very likely that air pollution makes us more vulnerable to COVID-19. Extensive research has shown that air pollution causes numerous respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia and asthma, in children and adults (link1, link2, link3, link4).

In addition, bad air quality may have increased the death toll of a previous coronavirus outbreak, the SARS pandemic of 2003. One study on SARS patients found that people living in regions with a moderate amount of air pollution were 84 percent more likely to die than those in regions with cleaner air.

However, no research on the relationship between pollution and the new COVID-19 virus has been published yet.*

*Are you a researcher working on understanding this relationship? Visit our open data tool or email us at contact@clarity.io to see how we can help.

OpenMap with COVID-19 data

Clarity has added COVID-19 data from John Hopkins University to our Clarity OpenMap. We hope this can be a helpful tool for the academic community and the public alike to take a deeper look at the relationship between COVID-19 and air pollution.

COVID-19 data:

In addition to exploring active cases in each region, we’ve sorted through the data so you can visualize cases in a plot by region and time:

• Confirmed: Estimated total number of individuals that are or have been infected
• Recovered: Estimated total number of individuals that have recovered from the infection
• Deaths: Estimated total number of individuals that have died from the infection
• Active: Estimated total number of individuals that are currently infected (Active = Confirmed - Recovered - Deaths)
• New Confirmed: Difference between “Confirmed” from the latest available report and previous day’s report

COVID-19 data vs. Air pollution data

Users can compare the air quality and COVID-19 data in the same timeline side by side and see if there is a potential relationship between COVID-19 and air pollution.

We are under a shelter-in-place order in California, but very fortunate to have the ability and resources to continue our work remotely. This is not the case for everyone so I want to end this note with a reminder to practice compassion during this time of crisis. Support the most vulnerable folks of our communities by purchasing only what you need, donating money, extra supplies and food, and looking out for our neighbors.

Clarity Talks Pollution & Coronavirus | Our OpenMap with COVID-19 data was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Clarity is launching one of our most exciting projects to date: a 150-sensor network in Paris with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the City of Paris to better understand air quality within and around schools in the French capital. The data from this innovative network, one of the first and largest of its kind, will be used to see how a new model of distributed air quality monitoring can be used to support environmental control efforts by governments.

The City of Paris has made bold commitments to create healthier and more sustainable neighborhoods for its citizens. As part of these efforts, air quality is a key target issue as it affects the citizen health and well-being. Understanding the air quality where people walk, bicycle and congregate is a critical part of this evaluation. This is especially important where it concerns the most vulnerable populations — youth, seniors, and those with chronic respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses. Air monitoring in and around schools where children spend the majority of their time represent a direct way to target and educate youths about exposure to air pollution.

Clarity COO Meiling Gao attended the Wednesday launch at Lafayette elementary school in Paris alongside Michael Bloomberg and Mayor Anne Hidalgo, where the inaugural device of the network was deployed. The rest of the devices will be deployed by Citeos IDF Grand Projets at daycares and K-8 schools later this summer in preparation for the beginning of the new school year. Airparif, supported by King’s College London, will be able to analyze the real-time data of various pollutants, particularly PM2.5 and NO2, with existing regulatory monitoring equipment for transformative insights. In addition, the data will be available to the public through an interactive map on the City of Paris’ website for concerned parents, educators, and citizens to access.

The announcement of 150 new measurement point across the Parisian schools will join Clarity’s existing pilot in the city, where 30 measurement points were previously deployed in September of 2018 as part of the Paris’ “programme d’expérimentations Qualité de l’Air” with the City of Paris, Airparif, Airlab, and UrbanLab. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ sponsorship for this new expanded network will increase the effectiveness of Paris’ air quality monitoring efforts exponentially and deepen public-private collaborations for tackling air pollution in Paris and air quality management trends worldwide.

Read Bloomberg’s press release here.

Read the City of Paris’ press release (French) here.

Bloomberg funds one of the densest air monitoring networks with Clarity in Paris, France was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published on Richmond Confidential by Hwang Kristen.

By the end of summer, 100 air quality monitors will be installed throughout Richmond and San Pablo.

It’s a stark contrast to the three state-run air monitors that currently serve the area, providing average air quality estimates for the region. The change has been spurred by first-of-its-kind legislation that is helping city residents gather detailed data about the air they breathe, and it’s a change that will shed new light on the city’s air pollution issues.

“We know that anywhere where you measure air quality is really specific to what’s going on right there,” said Kate Hoag, a scientist with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. “It can vary from block to block or neighborhood to neighborhood.”

AB 617, which passed in 2017, is in its early stages of implementation. It provided a $495 million mandate for the state to improve air quality in disadvantaged communities like Richmond. This mandate included grant money for community-based organizations to begin their own air quality projects and a framework for the state to develop local monitoring and emissions reduction plans.

Hoag said previous air quality regulation efforts caused places like Richmond to bear the burden of statewide pollution. AB 617 is intended to help these disproportionately impacted communities, she said.

At a recent steering committee meeting, District 1 Supervisor and California Air Resources Board member John Gioia said the law “changes the way we look at developing plans” to improve air quality.

Residents say the legislation has been a long time coming.

“It really blows my mind that it has taken this long to to be doing this,” said Sherman Dean, workforce development manager at local nonprofit Groundwork Richmond.

Dean spent his childhood hopping between his mom’s house in Richmond and his dad’s house in Bakersfield. In Richmond, he said he saw a lot of people struggle with asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

In fact, children in Richmond and San Pablo are hospitalized for asthma twice as often as their neighboring counterparts in Contra Costa County. Poor and African American youth in the county are hospitalized nearly four times as often as white, Latino and Asian youth, according to county data. Research also shows poor air quality aggravates cardiovascular disease.

The new law will provide $20 million over the next two years to Richmond and San Pablo to develop an emissions reduction plan with input from local and state agencies and community-based groups. In addition, Groundwork Richmond and an organization called Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy each received about $500,000 to install air quality sensors in the area.

This network of sensors will provide data that allows scientists to identify which pollutants are in the air and where they’re coming from, said Boris Lukanov, PhD and project lead at PSE. It’s the “perfect storm” for this kind of monitoring, he added.

“There’s traffic, there’s industry, there’s the refinery,” Lukanov said. “Richmond definitely needs an emission reduction plan.”

State targets Richmond for air quality improvement was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published on World Environment Day.

India, one of the world’s fastest growing major economies, has its own Silicon Valley in the city of Bengaluru. Home to information technology companies and multinationals such as Google, Apple, Intel, IBM, Cisco and Adobe, the city provides careers for over a third of India’s 2.5 million IT professionals.

As in most countries, rapid economic growth has come at the cost of serious and life-threatening air pollution. A staggering 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities are in India.

Air pollution in India leads to at least 1.2 million premature deaths each year and the country has one of the world’s highest exposure levels to PM2.5 fine particulate pollution. More than 77 per cent of India’s population is exposed to air pollution levels that are higher than the national ambient air quality standards.

In the north of India, urban pollution levels have risen dramatically because of the burning of coal in cooking stoves, forest fires and diesel fumes from transport. Air quality is so poor that the deteriorating conditions in the cities further south have all but been ignored, even though air pollution regularly exceeds safe levels. However, people actually living in cities such as Bengaluru have noticed the recent decline in air quality. IT professionals have cited their concern about air quality as a reason to move away from what was once famously celebrated as “the garden city”.

Doctors at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Lakeside Hospital have seen an alarming rise in heart problems in people under 40 and a 25 per cent rise in asthma cases in children under 14. Cardiologists and pulmonologists indicate that the rising air pollution levels are most likely responsible for these increases.

In April 2019, the Healthy Air Coalition was launched in Bengaluru, a collaboration of health professionals, researchers and health groups. Allied with Unmask My City, they installed 15 air quality monitors across the city. Another 25 monitors will be installed in June.

Prashanth Thankachan, researcher at St. John’s Research Institute and Medical College notes, “It’s essential that there is better monitoring of air quality in Bengaluru, to improve our understanding of individual exposure patterns in the city.”

The launch received overwhelming support from Bengaluru’s city authorities and politicians with permission granted to install several air monitors in public health centres. Two months prior, in February 2019, Bengaluru joined the World Health Organization, UN Environment, Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the World Bank’s BreatheLife campaign, with the Mayor proclaiming, “Our dream is the development of the whole city in a way that is sustainable and non-polluting, that will increase the liveability of Bengaluru for residents, and that will give other fast-growing cities examples of solutions to urban challenges.”

Helena Molin Valdes, Head of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat commends the collaborative effort underway by civil society and public officials. “Air quality monitoring data is a critical piece of the puzzle — information on specific pollutants and sources of these pollutions provides data to better inform decision makers to help them select solutions that will benefit both people and the planet.”

Bengaluru, a megacity of 8.4 million people and the second-fastest growing city in India, is in the process of planning its growth and development strategy to 2031, one that includes a significant shift to travel by public transport and electric vehicles, an advanced waste segregation and collection system, an expanded mass rapid transit metro system, and placing a greater priority on the comfort and safety of cyclists and pedestrians — developments with potential co-benefits for air pollution control.

As a next step, the coalition will provide health expertise to inform this first city action plan on clean air, which has just been published for consultation. In addition, several research projects are planned to determine the extent of health impacts of poor air quality on Bengaluru’s residents, particularly on children.

As the sources of air pollution in Bengaluru are mainly local — transport, waste burning and construction — it may be possible to cut air pollution faster and more deeply than has been possible so far in the cities of the north such as Dehli.

Technological advance underpins economic growth. To date we have not been able to uncouple growth from environmental damage, but professions providing technical advances in clean renewable energy and transport, energy efficiency, IT and sustainable agriculture and forestry will be the careers of the future. World Environment Day reminds us that, as we pursue technical advances, we need to protect the health of our planet to protect human health.

Clearing the air in India’s Silicon Valley was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Excerpt from article originally published on Landscape News by Sandra Gordon.

“ Human health in buildings: Improving building efficiency to meet climate goals is vital, but human health — mental, emotional and physical — must also be part of planning structures and urban environments. That’s the idea behind Clarity Movement Co., a clean-tech start-up that creates hardware and software technologies for better monitoring of the air quality in and around buildings. “How we design our neighborhoods and cities can greatly influence our behaviors, social interactions and general well-being,” says Meiling Gao, who joined the initiative after it was founded and now serves as chief operating officer. “I’d like to see how we can both achieve our energy goals while making sure we are providing clean indoor environments for people.” On her role as a woman in the company, Gao is ready with advice for young women aspiring toward a similar position as hers: “Take ownership of the value you bring to the table, as both a woman and an equal to your colleagues. There are many great examples of badass women out there changing the world… don’t be afraid of failure. Making mistakes is part of the process, but don’t forget to learn from them.”

(read more…)

5 women-driven technologies helping the world’s health was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published on Impakter by Evgeny Bazhan.

Air pollution is a well-known problem that leads to a drastic reduction of quality of life. It does not cause only chronic diseases: according to the recent UN report, air pollution is a cause of between six and seven million premature deaths and an estimated US$5 trillion in welfare losses each year.

Though clean air is a basic human right, a lot of people are deprived of it. Two thirds of the cities in the world with adequate air quality data are suffering from dangerous levels of pollution.

Today we have the pleasure of speaking with David Lu, Co-founder and CEO of Clarity Movement Co — a team of passionate engineers and scientists focused on making a positive impact in the world by tackling the global air pollution crisis.

What is your background? What made you decide to run your own business?

David Lu: I have been an environmental activist for a very long time. I was disappointed by the traditional protest and the lobby model that most environmental organizations deploy and wanted to see if we could leverage capital to make a positive social impact. Having lived in China for 18 years, I generally think that air pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues we face today. Clarity is the result of this thought process, founded to leverage technology to help reduce air pollution.

In the photo: David Lu (in the center) and his team. Photo Credit: Clarity

In which kind of activities is Clarity involved?

D. L. : Clarity is a mission driven company committed to solving air pollution. We believe in using technology to push for a movement. Currently, Clarity’s focus is on our air monitoring solution for cities that combines state-of-the-art hardware and software to help cities expand their current monitoring efforts by 100-fold. It provides the most actionable hyper-local information for government officials and citizens to understand and act on air pollution.

Why should we need more IoT — Internet of Things — solutions like the ones offered by Clarity?

D. L. : Currently, monitoring equipment used by governments is expensive, bulky, and labor intensive to operate. This limits the number of data points a city can manage, making them blind to the high temporal and spatial variation of air quality within a block-to-block level. Limited information results in limited action. Leveraging IoT technology allows Clarity to provide cities with affordable and accessible air quality monitoring solutions that gather high-resolution data not previously achievable with traditional technologies.

How many clients have you had so far?

D. L. : Since launching in the end of 2017, we are now deployed in 50+ cities in 30 countries across 6 continents. This rapid global growth in just a little over a year has allowed Clarity to work successfully with the diverse range of municipalities, NGOs, research institutes, and the private sector that make up our customer and partner portfolio.

In the photo: Clarity Nodes are able to receive and information on air pollution at any location. Photo Credit: Clarity

What are you planning to do in the next five years?

D. L. : Continuing to help cities and individuals tackle the environmental crisis. Number wise, this means being deployed in thousands of cities, garnering insights and helping enable data-informed policy to impact citizens in an inclusive and sustainable way. I don’t know how long it will take to eliminate the air pollution threat to our health and the environment, but we are committed to this issue and won’t stop until then.

What kind of impact do you have on your community and the environment?

D. L. : Clarity Air Monitoring equips decision-makers and other civic stakeholders with actionable real-time air quality data that help identify pollution hot spots and sources, target interventions, and quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of clean air policies including electrifying fleets, restricting vehicle flows, or encouraging public transit use.

With air pollution disproportionately affecting low-income communities of color, localized air quality data is revolutionary in understanding personal exposure. The data paints a picture that goes beyond political and economic boundaries to help communities understand the immediate air we’re breathing and take action to protect our health.

When the toxic levels of pollution we see today are a direct result of anthropocentric actions, we have a responsibility, a duty, to practice environmental stewardship.

There’s a huge information gap in current environmental management practices where policymakers simply do not understand air pollution enough to effectively mitigate it. This is a gap that Clarity is actively working to fill. It is one thing to say, “The air is polluted and we need to clean it.” It becomes much more difficult to answer the question, “How do we clean it?” when coupled with the environmental, social, and economic externalities that come with any decision.

Clarity is working to change how we understand our environment through data that supports the health of our planet and its inhabitants.

What are your thoughts about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? How do you think Clarity can give a positive contribution in that sense?

D. L. : Going back to the idea of turning the goals into action, air quality data serves as an important metric in evaluating outcomes, whether that be clean air goals or broader SDGs. Clarity has been fortunate to be recognized by the international bodies leading SDG efforts as a leader in the air quality space, contributing to the forefront of defining how technology and data fits into the proposed framework. I’m a strong believer in the power of data in aligning and assessing sustainability goals.

What is your view on climate change?

D. L. : Climate Change is the most pressing challenge that we are facing in the 21st century. However, we are not doing enough to reach the current 2°C target (not to mention 1.5°C target). Most efforts we are taking so far focus on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop CO2 concentration growth by 2050, but this is simply not enough. More aggressive efforts, such as negative emission technologies (NBTs) will inevitably be necessary to save our planet.

Air pollution, in the meantime, is closely related to climate change. Since a majority of today’s air pollution shares the same sources as greenhouse gas emissions, developing air pollution mitigation policies usually result in greenhouse gas emissions reduction, as in China, for example. In addition, air pollution action can be used to raise awareness around the global environmental crisis since it has a much more tangible effect on people’s daily lives while, at the moment, climate change can sometimes be seen as far too distant an issue for the majority of population.

Tackling Air Pollution — An Interview with Clarity was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Clarity and SHAIR, a team within Ramboll Group A/S, were honored at the end of last year with the Clean Air Alliance of China’s prestigious Bluetech Future Star Award for partnering in the production and testing of a Bi-Modal Real-Time Air Quality Solution (BRAQS). Clarity CEO David Lu and Ramboll Managing Consultant Min Hou — representing SHAIR — were present at the 4th annual Bluetech International Clean Air Conference in Beijing to receive the award.

The conference hosted nearly 400 representatives from leading industry experts, technology companies, investment firms, environmental agencies, to the media from December 3 to December 4, 2018 to discuss clean air technology, markets, and policies, as well as announce this year’s Bluetech award winners.

In addition to the awards ceremony, Clarity and Ramboll SHAIR had the opportunity to present BRAQS to conference attendees. Bi-Modal Real-Time Air Quality Solution (BRAQS) brings accurate high-resolution air quality data to the user’s fingertips in real-time. Jointly developed by Clarity and Ramboll, BRAQS is a scalable air quality solution that provides rigorous, actionable street-by-street PM2.5 and NO2 data through high-density air quality monitoring using Clarity nodes and scientifically robust modeling performed by SHAIR.

By combining cutting-edge technology in air quality data monitoring and modeling, BRAQS is able to achieve a level of spatial and temporal resolution and accuracy that represents a paradigm shift in what “data-driven” clean air action means. Still in pilot stages of roll out, this early recognition from the Clean Air Alliance of China suggests that BRAQS stands to truly transform the way cities manage air quality.

Those Interested in learning more about BRAQS should contact Clarity at contact@clarity.io or SHAIR at info@ramboll-shair.com.

Bluetech Clean Air Alliance Recognizes Clarity and Ramboll SHAIR as the Future of Air Quality… was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On November 13, 2018, AirParif, Paris’ air monitoring agency, announced their results after three months of technology evaluation in Paris. AIRLAB’s “2018 Microsensor Challenge” consisted of a comprehensive evaluation of 29 sensor solutions from participating companies, examining and validating 41 parameters for 12 pollutants by a jury of air quality and sensor technology experts. AirParif conveyed that over 51 million data points were processed as part of the months-long testing.

Clarity was able to demonstrate the significant advantages of our technology as the highest scoring outdoor air monitoring solution. The evaluation report highlighted several positive solution features, including the innovative Smart Calibration algorithm and user-friendly hardware design, noting that “the device is easy to install, discreet but with a nice design, and the possibility of installing a solar panel is a plus”.

In individual categories, Clarity scored highest for both ergonomics and relevance, and came in at a close second for accuracy and cost. These impressive scores allotted by Airparif and partners allowed Clarity to successfully come out on top with the highest cumulative results in the outdoor sensors group.

The full report in French can be found on AIRLAB’s website here.

Synergies between IoT and sensor technology has spurred governments to explore the viability of adopting low cost sensors, notably reflected in the growing number of experimentation and pilot networks in major cities around the world. As one of the leading cities in air quality management, Paris is a key driver in global interest in low-cost sensors as technology breakthroughs continue to magnify the value of affordable, distributed air monitoring networks.

With this AIRLAB Challenge, we are seeing scientific validation of low-cost sensors as a complementary source of air quality data to existing government monitoring solutions. The adoption strategy, as proposed by AirParif, is to focus on performance and application, identifying best in class products and best-fit applications. AirParif has identified regulatory and mobility applications, as well as personal exposure assessment for exploration — areas that Clarity is already actively developing.

Clarity’s Air Monitoring Technology Wins Approval from AirParif AIRLAB was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Excerpt from article originally published on Oakland North by Shuang Li.

On a sunny day a week ago, representatives from government agencies, universities, industry and environmental nonprofits gathered at the Oakland Convention Center to talk about low-cost air quality sensors. These sensors could be used to monitor air quality for communities affected by pollution in Oakland and other parts of the state.

California Assembly Bill 617, or AB 617, was signed into law last year by Governor Jerry Brown, Oakland’s former mayor, aiming to tackle air pollution at the neighborhood level. According to the bill, funding will be given to targeted communities — those affected the most by poor air quality — to clean up the air. The communities can use the money to do anything; they don’t have to spend it on sensors. But since sensors enable members of these communities to find out exactly where the sources of pollution are located and how bad they are, it’s likely that the money will be spent this way first.

“The sensor world was growing before AB 617 came along. But 617 helped because the communities now have more financial resources, because they can get some funding from the state to do their measurements,” said Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center, speaking outside the conference rooms. “Now that there’s a mission and there’s a government entity behind all this, things are moving forward.”

These sensors, which can be as small as an iPad, as big as a bicycle, or even larger, will help measure pollution gas or particulate matter in the air. Particulate matter refers to microparticles suspended in the air that can harm people’s health. These low-cost sensors, which cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars each, are still a lot cheaper than the government-managed regulatory monitoring sensors.

According to AB 617, local communities will have to apply for the funding. In the application, they will have to provide a clear plan for how they want to spend the money. There is no set date for when the funding will be provided, or when the sensors would be installed.

Starting on September 11, the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis organized the Air Sensors International Conference, a four-day event for all parties involved to meet and to talk about the things to look out for once a large number of sensors are in place, and the amount of data that will be generated every second.

“There are many goals. One goal is to help community people, who do not necessarily understand how to measure air pollution, to do that better,” said Wexler. “Another is that this field is moving so quickly, that it’s important that people who are making these sensors know each other.”

Wexler said that community groups would apply through the California Air Resource Board, a state agency, for the funding. The board would fund them to buy instruments, make a network to collect the data, and help the groups advise the government about what to do to reduce air pollution.

The community group can specify which sensors they want to buy and where they want to put them. But Wexler said this could be a challenge, because community members don’t necessarily have the expertise to do that or to analyze the data collected by the sensors.

Inside the conference room, on stage, the phrases “data quality” and “data analysis” were repeated in almost every session. “How will we pull all this data in and make sense of it?” asked Eric Stevenson, director of meteorology and measurement for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) during the first session. He added that the large amount of data would require a lot of analytical tools they currently don’t have.

In the exhibit section, at the booth for Berkeley-based Clarity Movement Company, COO Meiling Gao was busy talking to visitors. The company was showcasing two models of air quality sensors, priced at $700 and $800 respectively, plus a data subscription fee. Gao said the company’s focus had been on the international market, because that’s where the money was, but after AB 617’s passage, there’s more interest coming from their own backyard.

She said over the last four years her company had been testing out the technology and putting it out on the market. Ultimately, she hopes that the sensors can be used to create change based on the data they collect. “Data by itself is kind of pointless, unless you’re able to have insights on it and think of some kind of solution,” Gao said.

The non-regulatory low-cost sensors currently on the market don’t really have a government standard to follow. The Air Quality Sensor Performance Evaluation Center, run by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, evaluates the performance of these sensors and gives reports on how well they work. But following their advice is not mandatory for anyone trying to buy air quality sensors.

Robert Beckius, CEO of air pollution data provider Apis, said so far there is no rule or law for community monitoring standards. “But once you do that, then you start leaning more toward regulatory monitoring,” he said, standing beside their small air quality sensor in the exhibit section. To demonstrate its sensitivity, he placed two halves of a boiled egg under the sensor, a white block roughly the size of two toasters. A moment later, a spike appeared on a graph being displayed by a monitoring computer, indicating that the sensor had picked up the hydrogen sulfide from the egg.

But according to Stevenson from the BAAQMD, creating monitoring standards is precisely what they’re working on. “That’s part of what this conference is trying to do — to show how we want to use it, what kind of metrics are needed, in order to compare apples to apples. That’s where we’re trying to get, so that all of this information can be compared easily. That’s the future goal,” said Stevenson.

West Oakland, where residents often breathe bad air from the highway and trucks, is identified as one of the priority communities in the Bay Area under AB 617. It will develop its own action plan with the help of the BAAQMD and West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a nonprofit with a history of community planning. Co-director Brian Beveridge said the community members are very engaged and enthusiastic about the development of the action plan. Since they already have quite a lot of air data from previous measuring projects, their focus now will be how to use the data.

“I frankly think that we’re not that far away from simply walking around with environmental monitoring devices in our phones, on our bicycles, and all this data will be aggregated the way traffic data is by Google,” Beveridge said, speaking by phone. “We’re not so far away from being able to say, ‘This is the healthiest way from my house to school.’”

“It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?” he asked. “But this will really come down to who gathers that data and who owns it.”

Low-cost air quality sensors could be coming to Oakland residents was originally published in Clarity Movement on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.