Airflow monitoring
The importance of airflow monitoring and the benefits it offers
News: New indoor air quality monitoring to limit the spread of Covid-19 and other aerosol related infections.
Monitoring specialists
Spook's award winning remote monitoring service called OmniWatch monitors airflow. Measuring airflow across many different assets and areas; OmniWatch presents realtime readings in an easy to use real-time digital dashboard.
Air flow monitoring does not measure the volume of air but measures the movement of air in an area.
Spook and OmniWatch was voted Specialist Technology Company of the Year and Most Innovative Solution of the Year at the annual UK CIR Business Continuity Awards.
The importance of airflow monitoring
Airflow management is a crucial tool because it can remove the chance of excess static electricity and dust building up that can cause damage to equipment. The sooner ventilation failures are detected, the faster preventative and remedial measures can be managed.
There are many reasons airflow may become less efficient however the most common reasons are associated with:
- Missed filter changes
- Motors of HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) becoming less efficient or failing
- Fans become unbalanced and out of sequence
- Obstructions being placed in air flow channels
Larger rooms often require additional airflow sensor information to determine potential problems with cooling efficiency. It's therefore very important to measure the rate of airflow throughout to gauge the overall health of the environment.
Group device monitoring
Confirm equipment activity within complex and nontraditional configurations
There are often times where multiple pieces of equipment perform the same job but don't need to be active at the same time. An example would be air conditioning (AC) units that are on duty rotation and only one or two are active at any time in order to maximise the lifetime of each system while also increasing their efficiency.
With conventional monitoring, incorrect alerts would be generated whenever a unit switches from active to inactive, as each unit is treated separately with no knowledge of the others. By creating smart sensors within OmniWatch users are able to track the planned rotation cycles and be alerted to any unplanned activity which, if left unnoticed could cause service disruption.
Different types of duty cycle
Load shedding
Equipment is shut down for certain periods of time on a scheduled basis when it is considered non-essential. A variation of this uses demand readings from utility meters to shut down equipment when instantaneous demand reaches certain levels.
Time based duty cycling
Equipment is shut down periodically for fixed or variable intervals of time during its operating cycle. In a simple time-based control an example would be when the unit is not allowed to operate for a fixed interval out of a given period of time, for example 60 minutes off out of every 120 minutes on.
Temperature based duty cycling
When the controller overrides the thermostat for heating or cooling, so for extended periods the unit is cycled according to these preset on/off settings. Alternatively the equipment uses thermostats to implement the off-periods, for example, the off-period is invoked if the thermostat is satisfied during a cycle and vice versa.
Price based load control
Direct load is controlled where thermostat control set-points are offset based on pricing signals sent by the utility. Using this method the user can decide how much energy cost is expired at any particular time.
OmniWatch key features
Cloud based
OmniWatch is cloud based and is accessed via any internet enabled device.
Digital dashboards
OmniWatch dashboards provide interactive and intuitive access to sensor readings 24/7.
Scaleable installations
Totally scaleable from a handful of sensors to a global solution monitoring 1000s of devices.
Trend analysis
Sensor readings are held in perpetuity; providing accurate historical trend analysis.
Automated reporting
Comprehensive reports can be scheduled to be auto emailed daily, weekly and monthly.
Our server rooms are spread across London with the main IT rooms being in Hammersmith and our fail-over room is in Canary Wharf. We had a problem with unusual high temperatures in the Canary Wharf location and after some lengthy investigation we realised the air conditioning (AC) filters had become blocked.
Although the AC units were working they had become considerably less efficient. By installing air-flow sensors near to the air conditioning outlets we now monitor the strength of airflow as a key element of our preventative maintenance program.
Olympia London - London's premier exhibition provider for over 130 years.
Fun fact
Cat whiskers use airflow
It's hard to believe a cat uses whiskers to measure airflow but it's true. The official name for cats whiskers is vibrissae, which comes from Latin vibrio and means "to vibrate".
Cats whiskers are not limited to just around their nose, they're also above their ears, eyes, jaw and forelegs. The whiskers on their forelegs are called carpal whiskers and they help to determine movement of prey. However, cats have an even number of whiskers on their muzzle, each having twelve whiskers on each side which are completely symmetrical. The symmetrical pattern means they can accurately measure the environment.
A cats whisker has hair follicles with hundreds of nerves and the tip of the whisker has a proprioceptor; which is a separate sensory organ. Together, this makes whiskers highly sensitive to airflow and changes in their environment.
Spook monitors a wide range of climate conditions
Are we missing the climate condition you are looking for? Get in contact with us to discuss how we can help.
New to monitoring
We help organisations start monitoring projects from scratch. We have a wealth of experience that is free and helpful in creating an informed approach to monitoring.
We are also resellers to industry leading sensor and equipment manufacturers and can recommend the most appropriate hardware and sensors to fit any size monitoring project.
We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things from scratch.
We approached Spook as they have lots of experience in looking independently at monitoring projects. They recommended and provided the most appropriate hardware and sensors for us.
The sensors arrived pre-configured and were implemented on OmniWatch by Spook before we installed them.
Additional monitoring
Many of our customers have tried monitoring for themselves.
This ranges from institutions that rely on equipment onboard data loggers and communications cards; to organisations that have started monitoring projects but need help to extend monitoring to new areas and/or implement a central monitoring solution.
We needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.
Spook provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.
We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things.
When we Googled the various areas of interest we got more confused.
We approached Spook as they have a different outlook to simply buying hardware and sensors. Thankfully we now have a fully installed, joined up monitoring solution.
We had a series of climate monitors installed in our server rooms. Due to a change in our security policy we needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.
Spook suggested a technology upgrade and provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five server locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.
Used by
Get in touch with Spook
Please contact us if you wish for further information on how Spook can help with your environmental and power monitoring needs.