What started almost 125 years ago in the form of the wireless telegraph, an invention attributed to the italian inventor Marconi, now is part of our every day life, so deeply integrated into our lifestyles and work processes that there’s no going back. Telecommunications are undeniably one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments, driven by an inherent […]
Sensors built by Erasmus students in Craiova
When the Smoggie #airquality sensor was released as open source, we had a very specific target in mind: students and hobbyists that would build their own low cost sensors to add new data points on the global map, spreading the word on the #airquality impact on their communities and cities. This came to materialise on […]
The 9th Model A3 during the semiconductor crisis
Since its debut back in 2016, the model A3 was sought after with great interest due to its multi-sensor capabilities packed in a very compact form factor, exporting the data via several connectivity options. There was no monitoring scenario were the A3 couldn’t get the job done. So it spread to homes, cities, universities and […]
Smoggie Firmware Update
Smoggie is the recent uRADMonitor product based on a versatile compact platform that can handle multiple sensors, making space for several Smoggie based products depending on what they measure. Currently the list includes the Smoggie-PM, the Smoggie-CO2 and the Smoggie-GAS for Particulate Matter (PM1/PM2.5/PM10), Carbon Dioxide and toxic Gases. They all share similar form-factor and […]
uRADMonitor at #MWC18
For the second time at the Mobile World Congress, uRADMonitor now participated as a finalist of the LoRaWAN™ Challenge. The event took place on Tuesday, the second day of the MWC week. uRADMonitor was presented in front of an audience of IoT professionals including representatives from the LoRa Alliance™, Semtech, STMicroelectronics, EBV Elektronik and others. […]
Finalist in Hackaday Prize 2017
uRADMonitor participated in the first edition of the Hackaday Prize, in 2014. Although it was just starting, the global network managed to reach the semifinals in a competition that aimed at “connected things”. Dave Jones blogged about it, and suddenly the entire World knew about uRADMonitor: One year later, with the Portable Environmental Monitor or […]
KIT1 “Community Edition”
For some time now, the community helped improving the KIT1 design spawning many custom variants. This proves the utility of the KIT1 as an IOT device: a tiny little gadget, that can talk to the internet on itself, using little power, equipped with a multitude of sensors to sense the world around us. All these […]
Site v5.0
The continuous improvements to the uRADMonitor network are demanding more changes both to the units themselves but also to the central infrastructure. While we saw considerable progress on the hardware side with the model D and the new model A3 and model CITY units, the server was also been in the attention with important new […]
Firmware upgrade for the A3 with Wifi
The uRADMonitor model A, the KIT1 and the model A3 with Ethernet have all taken advantage of various scripts and tools developed by the community which allowed direct data access over their LAN connection. You can see a few of these below: uRADMonitor weather station integration Local stats graph with uRADMonitor RRD Tool graphing Include […]
Chivas The Venture Semifinals
uRADMonitor entered The Venture, a global competition created by Chivas, that offers 1 million dollars to create something that has a major social impact. This is the third edition, and the rumour has it that this year the competitiveness has increased considerably. We were happy to receive the invitation to the semifinals, together with other […]
RICAP Gala
The third cycle of the RICAP Innovation program concluded last week in Bucharest with an elegant evening in the company of RICAP mentors, participants, alumni and ecosystem supporters. The event highlighted the tech entrepreneurs who participated in this year’s program for an opportunity of drawing conclusions and providing feedback in an inspirational gathering. uRADMonitor was […]
Open Source uRADMonitor KIT1
Open Source means collaborative work, joined effort leading to extraordinary things. Recently we saw how a talented maker from Oradea, Romania pushed his KIT1 #uradmonitor unit to the limit! He used a lot of his personal time to build and document something better than the original. In the end he asked for nothing except to […]
Building the KIT1 with extra features
Last week I’ve assembled a KIT1 and posted some details about it to the forum. radhoo praised the article and asked me to share it on this blog, maybe will be helpful for the readers. So, here is an updated “copy-paste” from the original post. The diy kit is based on the v1.1.104 pcb. It […]
Air Quality Monitoring over LoraWAN
LoRaWAN is a Low Power Wide Area Network specification intended for wireless communication. The standard provides seamless interoperability of connected objects, without the need for complex installations. End devices can communicate wirelessly with a central server via radio gateways that appear as transparent bridges simply relaying the data. Picture 1: LoraWAN system diagram This opens […]
uRADMonitor Model A3
uRADMonitor Model A3 is a fixed monitoring station designed to measure a total of 8 important parameters related to pollution and air quality, continuing the environmental monitoring direction that was introduced by the Model D. It was first announced in June 2016, initially being deployed in public transportation, marking our company’s first steps towards the […]
uRADMonitor Model D
uRADMonitor Model D is the first uRADMonitor unit designed to address air pollution. It features top quality sensors, being able to sense a total of 6 chemical and physical parameters. It is handheld portable detector, in a rugged compact form aluminium enclosure. The initial concept was announced May 2015, and by August 2015 a first […]
The Dashboard
The purpose of the Dashboard is to offer an interface to the uRADMonitor system, the global data and the uRADMonitor detectors. Dashboard presentation Using the Dashboard, you can see your connected units, add them to your account and manage them further. This includes changing the coordinates of your uRADMonitor unit on the map, either for […]
Dynamic IDs
All the uRADMonitor detectors were designed with a unique hardcoded identifier used to organise the datasets collected. Using this approach we were able to group together measurements collected from any given hardware unit, and display them to the unit owner or on the uRADMonitor frontend, like in this example. We named this identifier a “Device […]
Viva Technology Paris
Just returned from the Viva Technology Fair in Paris. The event was huge, bringing together an impressive number of startups, investors and companies, driving the innovation spirit to a new scale. It was a place to meet new people, share ideas and get inspired from known speakers kindly offering insight and know how on their […]
Winner of Innovation Labs 2016
The 2016 edition of the Innovation Labs competition, organised by Tech lounge and backed up by Orange, Carrefour and the Romanian-American Foundation, ended a few days ago with an impressive ceremony at the National Library of Romania. Code named “the Demo Day”, it was an interesting combination of technical product/prototype demo and live presentations held […]
uRADMonitor Model A3 to map air pollution
We planned to extend the uRADMonitor network and go from Radiation monitoring to Air pollution and the first steps towards this goal included the uRADMonitor model D detector, capable of tracking multiple environmental parameters. As a continuation of this effort, we’re pleased to announce a new addition to the family of uRADMonitor detectors. Named A3, […]
Model KIT1 – Production Ready!
The uRADMonitor network started as a worldwide array of ionising radiation detectors, to deliver comparable radiation readings regardless of location. We’re now using the existing infrastructure to also include air quality measurements (the model D was a first step towards that). The first hardware detector we’ve built was the uRADMonitor model A, a fixed monitoring […]
Cluj Innovation Days
Cluj-Napoca emerged as Romania’s Innovation capital, thanks to the high number of universities, students and research programs, but especially due to the initiative of some very responsible people, that understood the need of creating an ascendent trend of development for the entrepreneurial spirit and business opportunities. Part of this positive direction was the Cluj Innovation […]
First indieGogo funded unit went online
There are now three uRADMonitor units running in Poland. The last one went online this month, and even if it’s technically similar to the other two by being a model A unit, it is special because it’s the first indieGogo funded unit to go online, part of the first batch of perks delivered. Thanks to […]
uRADMonitor enters RICAP Academy
uRADMonitor was recently selected in the RICAP Academy program that aims to push Romanian Innovation further. Magnasci, the Romanian company behind it, while being still a newcomer on the technology and innovation market, manages production and worldwide recognition in record time with this successful first product. The mission focuses on developing technology to better our […]
The steps to success
One year ago, I concluded the project’s roadmap with a plan. And everything happened, literally: we finally have the startup company and the indieGogo campaign became a reality, exceeding the initial funding goal. And this is just a tiny bit of everything that happened in 2015. It’s been a really successful year, with so many […]
Model D updates
Some of the remaining changes for uRADMonitor model D included finalising the firmware and identifying a few better alternatives for the LCD bezel. Should the indieGogo campaign reach it’s stretch goal, we’ll also see a GPS module added to this unit, and an internal antenna for a more compact design. But getting back to the […]
Pollution monitor meets 3d printing
The portable environmental monitor is finalist in both categories of the Hackaday Project, Best Product and the GrandPrize but the development doesn’t stop here. We’ve managed to put together a complex piece of equipment that also has an appealing design. One thing missing was a proper bezel to protect the LCD and to hide the […]
Hackaday Prize 2015 Grand Prize Finals
The portable environmental monitor project or the uRADMonitor-D was announced today as one of the 10 finalists of the Hackaday Prize 2015, from a total of almost 1000 initial entries. With this highly honourable distinction, the uRADMonitor project is committed to continue its mission of tracking health threatening pollutants at global scale. By expanding the […]
uRADMonitor KIT1.1
The uRADMonitor KIT1.1 is an Open Source Digital Radiation Dosimeter, that can be used both as a portable detector, but also as a monitoring station to upload readings to the uRADMonitor network. It relies on a Geiger tube to detect radiation. This can be build by anyone interested with minimum effort. Construction details are available […]
Model D – Production Ready!
The portable environmental monitor addresses pollution, the kind that we are unable to see but directly affects our health and can cause life threatening diseases. Airborne toxic chemicals, radioactive dust and radioactive radon are correlated with cases of pulmonary cancer, asthma and heart disease. Since our biological senses can do little to warn us of […]
Server upgrade / Site v4.0
The complexity of the uRADMonitor system stretches from a multitude of compact hardware detectors capable of sensing the invisible ionising radiation and air quality, to the big data software solutions that can handle the huge amounts of data in real time. With the network spreading at a fast pace, periodic upgrades on the server side […]
Nominated at CESAwards2015
uRADMonitor got into the shortlist of nominees for the Central European Startup Awards 2015, for the Best Cloud/Data application category. The Central European Startup Awards is a unique series of events in the CEE region, launched in 2014 to gather the best of the best from the CEE startup community. This competition covers 10 countries […]
uRADMonitor Model D Beta
The uRADMonitor-D, also known as the Portable Environmental Monitor is a powerful handheld unit equipped with advanced sensors to detect and warn against hazardous airborne substances. Three Beta stage prototypes are currently in transit for the Hackaday Headquarters to be part of the Hackaday Prize 2015 competition. Fingers crossed, winning this would boost the uRADMonitor […]
Weather vs Radiation readings
I’ve been running uRAD unit #12000003 here in Australia for around 12 months now and the only time I’ve really seen a solid increase in readings is during heavy rain which got me thinking, what other weather conditions affect radiation levels? To find out I purchased a cheap weather station off eBay and set about […]
uRADMonitor Model D featured on HackADay
The uRADMonitor-D, racing for this year’s HaD Prize, has been featured on HackADay Support this project by voting, using the skull button on the project page. You can follow it to stay in touch and receive update notifications
First uRADMonitor unit in Middle East
The temperature levels in Kuwait are high. The highest recorded temperature was 54.4°C (129.92°F), but summer values often reach 50°C (122°F). On the other hand background radiation stays in normal levels, as measured by the first uRADMonitor unit in Middle East that just went online: The following image shows a quick comparison between various locations. […]
Model D Radiation Sensor
The previous blog entry on the uRADMonitor D presented a few details on this new radiation detector, stating that it will be able to detect not only gamma radiation, but also beta and alpha (including radioactive radon sources). One problematic issue was sourcing the proper detector, one that was both sensitive and small to fit […]
uRADMonitor model D Concept
The uRADMonitor project started with a single network connected automated dosimeter, that quickly proved its usefulness and spawned into a global scale, full fledged monitoring network, covering all major continents. At the core of the entire infrastructure are the low power automated dosimeter units, at the moment of this article available as the uRADMonitor model […]
Featured on The Green Optimistic
If your concerns on a healthy environment extend from Ionising Radiation to multiple other environmental hazards, you’ll be most pleased to know that uRADMonitor has been featured on The Green Optimistic, part of an in depth analysis of our radiation detector! With their huge experience on enviromental-friendly technologies going back to 2008, they have a […]
uRADMonitor KIT1
uRADMonitor KIT1 is the first open source DIY dosimeter KIT, that can be used to collect radiation measurements and push them to the uRADMonitor network. Similar to model B that is to be released later this year, the KIT1 is intended for those interested in building their own radiation devices and contribute to the uRADMonitor […]
Two hundred uRADMonitor units
Not long after the 2014 summary announced a first achievement of 100 units deployed globally, the network has already doubled its size, with a total of two hundred units installed or in transit to their new location. The new locations are many and it would be a rather complicated task to name them all in […]
Model A New firmware v111
With the uRADMonitor network covering more ground, constant effort is invested in making the project serve its purpose better. Code improvements come with extra features or better stability, and new firmware updates are released to anyone interested in upgrading their units. Firmware 111 is the latest code released for the uRADMonitor model A units. We […]
The Compensation Capacitor
Normally, the Geiger tube delivers a sharp short pulse, with an abrupt descending path, as the quenching gas very quickly neutralises the conductive ions, and so terminating the current flow. The uRADMonitor pulses appear with a slightly rounded tip because an extra capacitor is added in the circuit, named the “compensation capacitor”. All uRADMonitor model […]
A year to remember
2014’s last day is slowly passing by. For what uRADMonitor is concerned, the passing year was one to remember. It was 2014 where this entire project practically started: it moved from an idea to a prototype and then into production, for now to see it expand quickly all over the world. The solution is already […]
Poland on the map with two units
With some of the new units still in transit, or waiting to get installed, a few others are already up an running. From the list of firsts, it is the time of Poland to come forward with two brand new uRADMonitor radiation monitoring stations in two of the country’s biggest cities: Warsaw and Łódź The […]
Hard to solder
It’s been another day, full of…soldering. To cover the high demand, I’ve been hard at work producing more units for those interested in helping the network expand. Here’s more than 20 PCBs. Tubes will be added later, also the software, and the calibration tests. It’s a lot of work, but the neat results make it […]
uRADMonitor Model A featured on EEVblog Mailbag
Dave Jones, from EEVBlog, did a nice review of uRADMonitor and covered everything from unpacking the unit to powering it up and getting the data online. Take a few minutes to watch Episode 686: Interested in joining the network? Click here.
Norway joining the network
Two units went online in Norway, the 11000016 in Oslo, and the 11000013 in Sandefjord. The measurements show higher readings compared to the tests performed in Timisoara: The Northern Europe seems to have a relatively higher background radiation. Here is a map that shows some of the background radiation levels measured across parts of Europe. […]