In Search of a Low-Cost IoT System for Real-Time Environment Monitoring

Abstract

Monitoring the environment of a certain area provides information that is useful in knowing climate change, level of pollution, the effect on human health and their way of life. In this paper, design, and implementation of a low-cost and portable environment monitoring system is proposed. The proposed system is designed and built exploiting Internet of Things (IoT) architecture. This will help the user to monitor the current weather and air quality of the surrounding area through the use of a mobile and web application. The proposed system is an IoT solution consisting of an IoT device and user interface software. The prototype device measures temperature, humidity, dust, UV index and different types of harmful gases and sends the data to a web server. The information is provided to the user like a weather app but with more insightful information. The device has the capability to gather and store data for a longer period which can be used to analyze changes over time. Other aspects of implementation are also discussed in this paper.