Development and In-field Application of a System for Indoor Environmental Quality Monitoring and Occupants’ Feedback Collection

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) affects occupants’ health, well-being and comfort, making its assessment increasingly required. This work presents a system designed to collect subjective and objective data on IEQ, referred to as PROMET&O (PROactive Monitoring for indoor EnvironmenTal quality & cOmfort). It is built on a survey and a low-cost and accurate multi-sensor device. The former was developed to collect feedback on occupants’ comfort perception and personal and behavioural information. The latter was developed to monitor the thermal, lighting, acoustic and air quality conditions in indoor environments. The monitored parameters (air temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde, illuminance and sound pressure level) were selected based on international standards. A three-step calibration of the device is applied to ensure the measurements’ reliability. The monitored data is transferred and processed on an open-source platform and the thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, indoor air quality and IEQ indexes are calculated and displayed on a user-friendly interface. This interface was designed to inform both building managers and occupants on IEQ trends and to provide them with more information on monitored parameters and hints on actions to improve their comfort. Preliminary tests in laboratory and in-field have shown the validity and scalability of the system’s design.