Performance assessment of low-cost indoor environmental monitors for comfort control systems in office environments

To meet regulations and user satisfaction, the built environment implements building management systems and conditioning strategies through smart controls. Particularly office buildings, are leading this transition toward smart controls. However, occupant satisfaction of office buildings under indoor conditions is found to be less than 50%, while the indoor temperature is often controlled within tight temperature limits. This dissatisfaction is mainly due to the large inter-individual differences in thermal perception of the environment. To address this issue and to provide potential solutions, Comfort Control Systems (CCS) are being explored. These systems assess and optimize the indoor conditions through monitoring the conditions while obtaining occupant feedback. The devices used for monitoring are predominately low-cost indoor environmental monitors (LCMs). Although the performance of LCMs against high-quality monitoring instruments have tested before, studies on the applicability of LCMs under the context of CCS are still scarce. Therefore, this research investigates the performance of 14 LCMs and single sensors and discuss whether these devices can be used to provide input to CCS. Results showed that LCMs had limitations in achieving absolute accuracy. Despite that, their relative accuracy and ability to detect environmental changes is sufficient for use as part of a CCS in office buildings.