The Internet of Things and air monitoring!

Jim Mills, Managing Director of Envirologger, was recently invited to speak at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) in Dallas (TX USA). The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) was the central theme of the Conference, which sought to identify the potential for wireless ‘smart’ systems in applications as diverse as the remote control of domestic appliances with smartphones to space robotics and personal medical devices.

"Wireless technology may be used to monitor

almost any remote sensors." Jim Mills

With 18,000 employees worldwide, Freescale is a leader in embedded processing solutions for the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets. From microcontrollers and microprocessors to sensors, analogue integrated circuits and connectivity, the company’s technologies are employed in many of the devices that we use every day.

Developed with the embedded engineer in mind, the FTF events drive innovation and collaboration amongst the global developer community, drawing nearly 60,000 attendees worldwide since their inception in 2005. The Dallas Conference was attended by around 2,000 engineers and speakers include Freescale’s CEO and senior management with guest presentations from some of the world’s leading technology innovation companies, including General Motors, Oracle, ARM, etc.

The guest speakers were invited to demonstrate that the IoT is already being employed successfully in a wide variety of applications and Jim Mills was asked to show delegates how Envirologger has web-enabled much of the Britain's air quality monitoring network. Jim outlined the ways in which Envirologger exploits Freescale technology to provide real-time access to remote monitors for air quality, traffic, meteorology and noise. “The Envirologger Gateway can be connected to just about any monitor, collecting data and passing it to our cloud-based servers,” he explained, adding: “We have also built Freescale technology into the wireless nodes that we have developed, which can be connected to individual sensors.”

During his presentation, Jim provided a live demonstration, featuring a global map showing the locations of Envirologger monitoring stations. For the purposes of the demonstration, Jim had configured carbon dioxide monitoring points at Freescale locations in both Scotland and Dallas, from which both historical and live data could be viewed.

Commenting on applications for the IoT Jim said: "We are seeing strong growth in the market for environmental monitoring and our customers are constantly finding new ways to exploit the value of live data.

"In essence, our customers need data, so with monitoring information stored in the 'cloud' we are finding that more and more customers prefer to rent data rather than purchase equipment and run it themselves. In addition, by web-enabling the data, users are able to provide information to an enormous number of people, which massively increases the value of the data."

All of the FTF presentations were filmed and are available online here. Jim's presentation can be viewed 50 minutes into the presentations on the second day. They have also conveniently extracted this presentation as a single YouTube video which we have included below!