Ashtead disrupts UK air quality market with launch of low cost monitor

As a Gold Partner with TSI, Ashtead Technology has announced the launch of the new TSI BlueSky™ air quality monitor. “This is an extremely exciting development,” says Regional General Manager, Ben Travis. “Particulates, and especially fine particulates, are the main concern with urban air pollution, so the development of a truly low cost monitor that is able to accurately monitor PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10 simultaneously, is a major step forward.

“At such a low price, customers will be able to measure these key PM fractions in far more locations than has ever been possible before. Importantly, whilst the BlueSky comes with TSI’s high level of quality and reliability, a much wider group of people will be able to afford hyperlocal air quality monitoring.”

Designed for both indoor and outdoor applications, the BlueSky pods will be of great interest to anyone with an interest in air quality. So, in addition to urban planners and developers, local authorities and facilities managers, the BlueSky pods can be utilised by schools, universities, sports facilities, researchers, lobby groups and even members of the public.

Employing a laser-based light scattering particle sensor, the TSI BlueSky air quality monitor is a lightweight, 6-channel instrument designed to simultaneously and continuously measure four particle mass concentrations as well as temperature and relative humidity.

BlueSky pods are mains powered and can be installed in a matter of minutes, connecting to WiFi and providing users with the ability to view live data via TSI Link™ which is accessible free of charge, on-line. Users are also provided with the option to publish their data so that TSI Link users anywhere in the world can view their data. In addition, a removable SD-card logs all results and can be removed for subsequent viewing and analysis of the data, which is recorded at 15 minute intervals.

Each BlueSky pod is factory calibrated and no further calibration is necessary. The pod checks itself continuously and warns the user when the measurement cell needs to be exchanged. Again, this is a simple and low cost procedure. Users also have the facility to apply a custom calibration factor if they wish to adjust the monitor to specific local particle types.

Summarising, Ben says: “By dramatically dropping the price of monitoring we are enabling air quality measurements at far more locations than has previously been possible, and by utilising cloud-based data sharing, we are empowering new levels of air quality transparency.”