Our success in each of the sectors of this section and experience working with corporate clients, allows us to offer a professional, first-rate air quality index (AQI) monitoring system for your home at an affordable price.
The office variant ensures that your office is the space workers want to come to, not the one they have to come to. It can also be integrated with other MasterMind · Tech systems such as a workplace or room occupancy monitor.
Moreover, the internationally successful education edition focuses mainly on kindergartens and primary schools to protect children from the adverse effects of air pollution, which put their health, mental and physical development in jeopardy.
Your home is your castle. Therefore, it should be able to ensure your safety and wellbeing and of the loved ones living with you.
According to Mancera-Cuevas, K., & Kaufman, J. D. (2016). Time-location patterns of a diverse population of older adults: “the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution (MESA Air), participants reported spending most of their time inside their homes (average: 121 hours/week or 72%). More than 50% of participants reported spending no time in several of the location options, including at home outdoors, at work/volunteer/school locations indoors or outdoors, or in “other” locations outdoors”.
As it can be seen most of the day people tend to stay at home or generally indoors, which increases the risks of being affected by poor indoor air quality with high density of PM2.5 among other pollutants. Then, the necessity of having our indoor air quality monitoring system becomes obvious and very needed indeed. What’s more, from the same study we can observe once again how crucial is controlling levels of PM2.5 and other air quality parameters (TVOC, CO2, PM10, PM 1, temperature and humidity) at home and in other indoor microenvironments where we spend time, like offices and educational establishments.
The figure from Mancera-Cuevas, K., & Kaufman, J. D. (2016) study illustrates, as put by the authors “Mean Percent Time Spent in Six Microenvironments by Demographic, Socioeconomic Group, and Site. The remaining time (up to 100 percent) represents the time spent indoors at home. For example, female participants reported spending 74 percent of their time indoors at home”. What can be surely observed is that controlling air indoors is indispensable, since we spend most of our time indoors. What’s more, it’s important to stress that home indoor air quality is vital not only for elderly members of the household, but for all the rest as well, including young adults, adults and children. Furthermore, nowadays one’s home is a multifunctional place, that should be as appropriate for remote work as for providing adequate sleeping conditions.
To ensure a productive environment at home where all of the work targets for the day can be reached, it is crucial to consider the air quality in the work room. According to the study by Harvard Chan School of Public Health, “increased concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and lower ventilation rates (measured using carbon dioxide (CO2) levels as a proxy) were associated with slower response times and reduced accuracy on a series of cognitive tests”.
To add increased levels of PM2.5 is connected with such negative effects such as more frequent headaches, difficulties in remembering new information and reduced ability to concentrate. It’s not a secret for anybody, that home environment is yet a workspace that from time to time presents unexpected disconsentrating factors, like other household members' activities or pets, among others. Therefore, it is of primary importance to control the PM2.5 levels and CO2, in order to ensure the highest concentration levels either when external distractions are present or not.
We’ve said it once and we will repeat: your home is your castle. The castle that should provide you with an environment prepared to ensure healthy rest, since it is indispensable to keep people’s bodies and minds healthy and ready to respond to the external negative triggers. From the ability of your home to have controlled levels of PM2.5, CO2, TVOC, temperature and humidity, depends the quality of your sleep, that is directly affecting the wellbeing and productivity not only the next day, but also for prolonged periods of time if not taken seriously.
This knowledge is supported by numerous scientific studies. For example, the study of P. Strøm-Tejsen, 2015, The effects of bedroom air quality on sleep and next-day performance concludes that “objectively measured sleep quality and the perceived freshness of bedroom air improved significantly when the CO2 level was lower, as did next-day reported sleepiness and ability to concentrate and the subjects' performance of a test of logical thinking”.
Furthermore, a recent investigation of Canha, N., 2022, Influence of indoor air quality on sleep quality of university students in Lisbon, that was made available in partnership with the Swiss School of Business Research, shares highly relevant insights: “mean levels of CO2 and VOCs above the established legislation were found during sleep, indicating that ventilation conditions were not sufficient to keep an acceptable IAQ. Temperature was also out of the acceptable comfort range during 44% of the sleeping time. The perceived sleep quality was found to be negatively associated with the number of awakenings and the mean levels of CO2 and relative humidity during the sleeping period. These results confirm previous findings where some IAQ parameters may influence the sleep quality of the individuals, highlighting the importance to focus on the IAQ of sleeping environments as a strategy to improve sleep quality of individuals”.
To sum up, taking all of the previously discussed studies, our indoor air quality monitoring system is a must have solution for homes to ensure general wellbeing of every household member regardless the age and occupation.
The importance of our IAQ monitoring system for offices is supported by a new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The extract from the research findings states: “The one-year study, which included participants in offices across six countries working in a variety of fields, including engineering, real estate investment, architecture, and technology, found that increased concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and lower ventilation rates (measured using carbon dioxide levels as a proxy) were associated with slower response times; lower ability to focus, productivity decrease and reduced accuracy on a series of cognitive tests. The researchers noted that they observed impaired cognitive function (response times, ability to concentrate and productivity) at concentrations of PM2.5 and CO2 that are common within indoor environments”.
According to Jose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, a research fellow in the Department of Environmental Health and lead author of the study: “The study also confirmed how low ventilation rates (high level of CO2) negatively impact cognitive function: response times, ability to concentrate and productivity. Overall, the study suggests that poor indoor air quality affects health and productivity significantly more than we previously understood.”
MasterMind · Tech IAQ HOME, OFFICE & EDUCATION is created to respond to this pain point. With our high precision sensors of PM2.5 and CO2, we control their levels to create and ensure office environments that are able to provide conditions for productive work and high levels of concentration.
MasterMind · Tech IAQ HOME, OFFICE & EDUCATION ensures high levels of safety and well-being of students and teachers, allowing schools and universities to become educational establishments of reference for it.
The importance of our IAQ monitoring system and existing urgency for using it is proved, eloquently and scientifically explained by UNICEF in their report Clear the air for children - The impact of air pollution on children (2016)
Some of the key takeaways are:
Air pollution is directly linked to diseases that kill. In 2012, around 600,000 children under the age of 5 died from air pollution worldwide. Nearly one million children die from pneumonia each year, more than half of which are directly linked to air pollution.
Studies have shown that air pollution is strongly associated with respiratory conditions such as pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma, among others.
Children's lungs are in the process of growth and development, making them particularly vulnerable to polluted air. The cell layer inside the airways is more permeable in young children. Children's airways are smaller than those of adults, so infections are more likely to cause blockages than in adults.
In addition, children's immune systems are still developing, especially at an early age. During early childhood, children are very susceptible to viruses, bacteria and other infections (for example, PM2.5). This increases the risks of respiratory infection and reduces children's ability to fight it.
However, there is nothing to worry about, MasterMind · Tech IAQ HOME, OFFICE & EDUCATION is taking care of you. Our high-precision sensors (CO2, PMs, VOCs, temperature and humidity) detect and display the levels of the elements harmful to students and workers in educational establishments mentioned above that cause people's health to deteriorate.
To conclude, we’d like to share the opinion and recommendation of UNICEF from the same study referenced previously, that uncovers the real importance of our indoor air quality monitoring system.
The quote is as follows:” We need better monitoring of air pollution. Air quality can fluctuate rapidly in every environment. For example, cooking or heating with biomass in the home can cause a rapid spike in indoor air pollution. Urban outdoor pollution spikes during rush hour in most cities. Waste-burning tends to be practised at certain times of the day in many places.
Monitoring systems can help individuals, parents, families, communities and local and national governments become more aware of how air pollution might affect them, and adjust to immediately prevailing conditions to minimise exposure. These measures will not in themselves stop the problem of air pollution – but they are a necessary and important first step. The more we know about air pollution, the better we can figure out how to protect children from its negative effects”.
Certifications play an important role in the modern business world. By means of a certification we can assure that the space is controlled and responds to the latest industry requirements. However, certification WELL has gone much further, becoming the first certification that focuses completely on wellbeing of the building occupants, and not on the building engineering qualities alone.
Every organisation, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, uses WELL to emphasise employee health and safety, increase real estate value, and improve the performance of the company's employees.
With our indoor air quality monitoring system we are at the forefront of safety and wellbeing of all people at all ages, by monitoring the indoor air quality parameters that can negatively influence their health and productivity. Therefore, given that WELL is a dynamic checklist, with our system we are able to achieve the following points, helping your establishment to be WELL certified:
Natural and mechanical ventilation
Indoor air quality plan
Smoking ban
Facility management
Control of the humidity formation
Moreover, our IAQ monitoring system allows you to share the philosophy of the certification WELL: “Everyone deserves to live their best, healthiest life”. By sharing and supporting this philosophy with our product you are making first big steps in being WELL marked, that will indicate to the public that your establishment is a people-first place.