IoT in Homeoffice & Office: Healthy Room Climate with the Help of LoRaWAN® Part 1 – Basics & Sensors

– 📖🕓 ≈ 7 min – Most recently, it was shown here how you can ensure a healthy indoor climate with IoT sensors and the B.One Gallery, for example in the home office or office. Experience in part
1 of my personal experience report on how I fared with the setup and monitoring of the CO2 level and temperature in practice.
– 📖🕓 ≈ 6 min – Most recently, it was shown here how you can ensure a healthy indoor climate with IoT sensors and the B.One Gallery, for example in the home office or office. Experience in part
2 of my personal experience report on how I fared in practice when monitoring the humidity and the amount of light, and what my overall conclusion is.
– 📖🕓 ≈ 7 min – [Update des ursprünglichen Artikels vom 22.07.2022] The use of LoRaWAN® sensors in combination with a dashboard is ideal for monitoring the indoor climate in meeting rooms. That is why we are showing you in a small series of articles how a self-programmed indoor climate dashboard tailored to individual requirements based on our IoT platform B.One Middleware can look like.
– 📖🕓 ≈ 5 min – In part 1 of this small series, we laid the foundations for monitoring the working/room climate in the home office and office with some theory and the installation of IoT sensors. In Part 2 we will now go into the connection to an IoT platform such as the B.One Gallery including data visualization and notifications.
– 📖🕓 ≈ 3 min – Are you also always unsure whether or when your plants will need water again and how much? Or do you have to ensure a certain indoor climate for them, but are wondering how? LoRaWAN® based IoT sensors provide a remedy…
– 📖🕓 ≈ < 1 min – Everyone knows the situation when the air in the meeting room or classroom is oppressive after a while. Get informed in advance or evaluate climate…
A pleasant and, above all, healthy working/room climate is an important factor for the highest possible productivity in the office, whether on site or in the home office. But how can you ensure this? A practical and cost-effective option is the use of IoT sensors and associated tools. In a two-part series of articles, we would therefore like to use the example of selected LoRaWAN® sensors and the visualization tool B.One Gallery to show you how easy it is to implement the whole thing. In this part we start with a little theory and the installation of the sensors. In the second part we will go into the connection of the B.One Gallery.
Before the practical implementation begins, the question naturally arises as to what constitutes a good and healthy working/room climate and which factors/parameters play a role here. Although there is no claim to completeness, the following are definitely included:
Among the most important and most relevant for both the on-site office and the home office are certainly the CO2 level, the relative humidity, the Temperature and the amount of light/illumination. Therefore, in this article, we will first focus on these four parameters.
Which values the individual parameters should have depends on the one hand on the activity carried out and on the other hand of course also to a certain extent on personal preferences. In our example, we assume a typical office job that includes writing, reading and data processing.
The workplace ordinance/directive (ArbStättV) ASR A3.4 contains very specific guidelines for the illuminance/quantity of light as to how high this value should be at least. Accordingly, a minimum value of 500 lx is required for office work involving reading, writing and data processing, with lighting experts recommending an even higher value of 1.000 lx. Employees find the latter to be particularly pleasant and to help them concentrate. For better classification: In daylight in summer on a cloudless day, the value can be around 100.000 lx, but at midday on a cloudy November day it is just around 6.000 lx (see partner.mvv.de , among others).
As far as the CO2 content of indoor air is concerned, according to the health assessment of carbon dioxide in indoor air by the Federal Environment Agency, values below 1.000 ppm ( = parts per million) Carbon dioxide are considered as good or harmless. Values between 1.000 and 2.000 ppm are considered as conspicuous and concentrations of more than 2.000 ppm as unacceptable. Other sources even put the threshold a little lower, so that it can be said that ventilation is best from 1.400 ppm. This is confirmed by the fact that tiredness and sleepiness can set in from 1.500 ppm (see among other things www.cik-solutions.com).
According to the workplace ordinance (ArbStättV) , the optimum humidity in offices is 40 to 60 percent when the room temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius. If it permanently falls below 30 percent, the dry air can also dry out the skin and mucous membranes on the eyes, nose or throat. The consequences can be, for example: dryness, conjunctivitis, dry cough, an increased risk of colds and even skin eczema.
Especially when it comes to temperature, there are certainly big differences as to when it is perceived as pleasant or unpleasant. Nevertheless, there is also a reference value in the workplace ordinance in connection with the workplace rule ASR A3.5 - room temperature - (ASR) issued for this purpose, which temperatures at the workplace are suitable for employees. Accordingly, a temperature range of between 19 and 25°C should be maintained in rooms in which office activities or similar are carried out.
So much for the theory. Let's now look at the practical implementation to ensure these values.
In order to monitor the indoor climate in your office, whether on site or in your home office, using IoT, you naturally need appropriate sensors that can measure the parameters mentioned above. In this example we use the LoRaWAN®-based wireless sensors ZENNER CO2 Indicator L868 and Sensative Strips +Comfort . The former for monitoring the air quality based on the CO2 content and the latter for monitoring the parameters humidity, temperature and illuminance/light quantity.
In addition to the sensors, you also need access to a LoRaWAN® network and a tool like the B.One Gallery , which you can use to visualize your data and set up appropriate notifications. You get both, for example, when purchasing a GatewayPLUS with the additional option ZENNER IoT PLUG&PLAY.
We use the new ZENNER CO2 Indicator to monitor the air quality. This is a compact LoRaWAN® sensor for measuring the CO2 content indoor, which is either connected to a power source via USB-A to USB-C cable or operated with an integrated battery.
The device uses the so-called photoacoustic principle to detect the current CO2 concentration ( measured in ppm = parts per million). Thanks to the display of the current value on the integrated display and the correlating LED display, you can use the indicator to optimize your ventilation behavior and counteract poor values immediately with a fast response time. The exact meaning of the colors and the evaluation of the measuring ranges are as follows:
The special thing about this CO2 "traffic light" from ZENNER is that it can be used both with and without LoRaWAN®, so called "stand alone". This makes them the ideal stationary, but also mobile companion in the company, whether at work, in the meeting room or at home in the home office. The advantage of integration into a LoRaWAN® network is that you can forward the data to an IoT platform such as the B.One Gallery and set up notifications for critical status changes (see below).
You can find the complete technical specifications and a more detailed functional description in the data sheet or in the operating instructions for the ZENNNER CO2 Indicator . In addition, more articles about this device will follow soon here in the blog.
https://www.mz-connect.com/shop/media/pdf/32/1c/41/MA_IoT_CO2_ZENNER_INDICATOR_L868_ID_A_DE_EN.pdf
In principle, you can place the CO2 indicator on any flat surface, since no assembly is required. If the device is to remain in the same place for more than a day, we recommend connecting it to a power source with the supplied USB-C cable. Where the ideal place is ultimately depends on your environment or your room. Depending on the size, it may also make sense to use not just one, but several devices. It is also important to place it in such a way that you do not exhale directly in its direction, since the measurements do not correspond to the CO2 content of the environment/room due to the increased CO2 content of the exhaled air. And the ventilation slots on the back must not be covered.
In this home office example, it was placed on a raised sideboard near the desk (depending on the circumstances, this may be too close to your workplace):
Bereich (ab Werk) | Bewertung | LED-Farbe |
---|---|---|
< 800 ppm | normal | Grün ![]() |
800 - 999 ppm | geringfügig erhöht | Gelb ![]() |
1.000 - 1.399 ppm | hoch | Violett ![]() |
> 1.399 ppm | sehr hoch | Rot ![]() |
In order to keep an eye not only on the CO2 content but also on the humidity, the temperature and the illuminance/amount of light, we use the Strips Multi-Sensor +Comfort from Sensative, which can measure all of these three parameters together.
The special thing about the +Comfort, as with all strips sensors, is its very small size. It is only around 3 mm thick, which is why it can be attached very inconspicuously in many places. In addition, there is a very long battery life of up to 10 years, depending on the configuration of the sensor.
Here, too, it depends on the conditions of your room or workplace. Basically, you should place the sensor in such a way that it can record the required parameters as they really are in your place. What has proven to be less suitable, for example, is placement on the base of a black monitor. Why? Because dark surfaces swallow the light and the amount of light captured is significantly less than actually exists in the middle of your desk. That's why we simply attached the sensor to the edge/corner of the table so that it doesn't interfere with your work (just one possibility out of many). It's best to just try it out and look at the measured values.
As far as the type of attachment is concerned, you can either attach the sensor to the desired location using adhesive strips on the back, or you simply place the sensor loosely in its place, provided there is no risk of it slipping quickly.
You can find the complete technical specifications and a more detailed functional description in the data sheet or in the operating instructions for the Strip +Comfort .
This would lay the foundations for monitoring your working/room climate. As described at the beginning, we will look at the connection to the IoT platform B.One Gallery in the second part of this small series. In addition to the initial activation of the sensors, this primarily includes the visualization of the data and the setting up of notifications.
So stay curious and healthy!
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