Congratulations to Safecast for launching their Solarcast radiation and air quality monitor. Safecast formed in response to the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant. They built a radiation monitoring platform and publicly shared the data with everyone — important at a time when government and academic institutions were not sharing data about radiation levels and there was no reliable data source to let people know what might be safe.
Today, Safecast is now working to provide “citizens worldwide with the tools they need to inform themselves by gathering and sharing accurate environmental data in an open and particpatory fashion.” Solarcast is part of that evolution. It is designed to be self-powered and deployed anywhere for long-term outdoor use. It includes dual radiation sensors, dust particulate sensors, a humidity sensor and can communicate via cellular or LoRa. Solarcast uses our 6 Watt solar panel to power the system.
From our perspective, the technology is great, but we are impressed by the commitment of Safecast to nurture and grow a community of people who are passionate about science, measuring their environment and, ultimately, taking action to make our world safer.
Perhaps our favorite feature is this snowboard mount that allows Solarcast to be mobile. Lots of people have ski / snowboard racks on their cars. Put a Solarcast on the rack, position the car where you want to monitor air quality and voila, you’re in business!
For more on powering sensors from solar power, read our Solar for IoT guide. Love citizen science? Learn more about how you can volunteer with Safecast here.
Please look into the air quality in RIdgewood Queens, NY. It’s noticeably bad, and we need city council and legislators to listen to this data.