But data on hyper-local air quality, which can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, is much harder to come by. Todd Richmond, a faculty member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and IEEE member, wondered if IoT could help.
“We view IoT devices as a new way to gather data,” writes Richmond. “Rigorous research and analysis is fueled by data, and IoT devices allow new opportunities to gather data in times, places, and ways not previously possible. Then when you combine these new data sources with new ways to parse and analyze the data, such as Machine Learning, you have even more new capabilities and scaling that was not previously possible.”