Introduction to Indoor and Outdoor Monitoring Systems: What They Are, and Why You Need Them

Indoor or outdoor monitoring is the future of healthy, smart buildings. Even if you are not familiar with the term, you’ve probably come across many monitoring products such as security cameras, baby monitors or smoke alarms.

In this article, I will go over the definitions of indoor and outdoor monitoring, why you need it and suggest a couple of solutions for your home or workplace.

What is indoor and outdoor monitoring?

Indoor monitoring is a way to gather data on people or things inside a building, which can be your home, office or factory. For example, indoor “air” monitoring gathers data on the gasses, particles, matters in the air inside a building.

Outdoor monitoring is the same process, but it gathers data outside, like on your field or farm.

Why do you need indoor and outdoor monitoring?

Indoor and outdoor monitoring solutions can be used in 3 different venues:

1. Residential Buildings. The market for smart home devices is estimated to reach about US$159 billion in 2024. An example of this is a home security system with night vision cameras. Studies have shown that homes without a security system have a 300% higher chance of getting broken into.

2. Commercial Buildings. Be it shop floors or offices, indoor air quality (IAQ) systems can track the levels of pollutants in the air, while outdoor irrigation systems can detect elements such as moisture and humidity on your farms.

3. Industrial Buildings. You can ensure the machines in your factories and warehouses are running safely and efficiency by monitoring their real-time temperature and electricity usage.

Our recommended indoor and outdoor monitoring solutions

There are obviously all sorts of items that can be monitored. Here we have picked a couple of different applications as examples:

• Electricity Usage. This indoor toolkit allows you to remotely monitor real-time electricity usage of your devices on your smartphone. For example, you can track how much electricity the water chillers have consumed in your factory, and fix or replace them right away after receiving an alert of abnormalities.

• Gases. This gas detector detects different kinds of gases including O2, CO and VOCs in your indoor or outdoor air between -5 to 50 ℃.

• People. This occupancy detection solution counts the number of people in a 36 square meter area by sensing their heart rate, and sends a notification when the area is too crowded.

• Plants. This outdoor irrigation monitoring system detects the status of your plants. It can collect information about soil temperature and soil moisture, transmit them to the cloud, and automatically trigger the irrigation system to water the plants.

• Animals. This waterproof GPS tracker is designed to track the number and locations of animals (like cattle) on your farm.

Indoor and outdoor monitoring, and the future

Today, indoor and outdoor monitoring solutions are ensuring the health, comfort and well-being of not only people and things inside buildings, but also those outside.

In the future, we may see each of these solutions having advanced functions. For example, a security camera might be able to detect the source of fire when your home is burning, and a smoke detector might be able to monitor levels of CO2 and humidity in the air.

For more of our indoor and outdoor monitoring solutions, check out our solution marketplace. Feel free to talk to TECHDesign’s experts if you need customization!