CHALLENGE
Over 95% of the world population is breathing unhealthy air? How ould we engage the public and government to combat the pollution through ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing tools?

POTENTIAL
An IoT environmental sensing network proposal and prototyper. 

IMPACT
IoB  has been selected into UABB Shenzhen&Hongkong Binnale, in which we reached out more than 120,000 audiences.

What are we breathing today?

In the rapid rise of new generation 5G networks, IoT devices increasingly play a role in the management of societies driven by individual movements and actions. As much as engines has changed the way and the right of way humans move around places, smart devices such as smartphones and wearables fundamentally transform the mechanics of social networks and information flow. New institutes and regulatory bodies such as MIT’s Media Lab, Oxford’s Institute of Internet have since emerged around different parts of the world to experiment new governance paradigms for data-driven societies.

In the age of data-driven societies, the so-called “connected society”, when standards are considered flawed, incomplete, or unusable without an input from regional individuals. Through interactions with international societies, regional governments will enjoy improvements in administration efficiency with more accurate compliance standards, which translate to richer urban management and new policing features (social credits and rewards), organic policy evolution, faster emergency responses, and resilience to global crises. All these factors contribute to justify incorporating data collection and action prompts into everyday objects, such as a mask, where a future with a ‘god eyes view’ guarding our health can be envisioned.

The Internet of Breaths (IoB) derives from such dynamic situation. IoB is a two-fold system consisting of smart air masks and a mobile app for public users and a real-time IoT environmental sensing network for the government. It aims to create a collaborative approach with decentralized feedback mechanism, combining bottom-up data collection and top-down environmental management, to combat extreme air conditions and to foster a community that pays adequate attention to air pollution and public health.
Over 95 percent of the world’s population is breathing unhealthy air. With IoB, we hope to engage the public and the government to combat air pollutions. In this case, everyday objects interacting with citizens in daily life are imbued with intelligence for the purpose of social well-being.

The IoB is a detection, protection, and communication interface for the public users to measure ambient air conditions. The real-time IoB network is formed by mask sensor nodes with air quality and GPS location information transmitting to the cloud. The air condition is then visualized on a digital map accessible to public users through the mobile app and a management interface accessible to the government to take strategic combating approaches.

Connecting to the IoB is a manifesto, one that reconfirms our sensitivity of the social and natural environment, one that shows our determination to charge against air pollution.

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