Simplifying air quality investigations

The latest product from South Coast Science, the Praxis/OPCube, responds to the call for a robust and compact monitor (154 x 154 x 130 mm) suitable for conducting air quality surveys or establishing baselines in outdoor deployments.

It is a product destined for use in a ‘smart’ environment and it is designed for pragmatic data gathering when roadside monitoring, or when undertaking local authority investigations. As with its big brother, the highly successful Praxis/Urban, the Praxis/OPCube has the same open source design and high-quality Alphasense sensors provide proven sensing technology. The Praxis/OPCube can be deployed in a high-density monitoring network using the same data dashboard, infrastructure and sampling rates as the Praxis/Urban, so that in terms of accuracy, reliability and deployment, the two devices operate in the same league. The Praxis/OPCube, however, is a smaller, lower cost device specifically designed to provide precisely what is required in environmental health and smart city use cases.

Product development at South Coast Science operates on a philosophy of using the right tool for the job and avoiding unnecessary complexity or cost. This is essentially a scientific principle: the simplest explanation is most likely the right one and simpler theories are easier to test. Effective air quality monitoring is achieved by understanding the requirements of a particular task and identifying which measurements are necessary to produce valid, verifiable data. Therefore, the Praxis/OPCube is equipped with sensors for gas, particulate matter, temperature and relative humidity.

Data from multiple gas sensors is not required for every monitoring task, so why have a larger, more complex device than is needed? More components will require more maintenance and an unnecessary multiplication of your costs over your monitoring network.

The Praxis/OPCube has a single gas sensor combined with a particulate monitor, which is sufficient for most environmental health contexts. The obvious benefit for customers is they do not pay for redundant functionality or infrastructure.