Office-Based Workplace Monitoring and Time-Aware Feedback by using Ambient IoT Sensors

During the COVID pandemic, our understanding of a workplace (e.g. office building, home office, other offices) has changed. For example, we are constantly changing our workspace in office jobs. It is a post-COVID phenomenon that we change our work environment more frequently and more often during a week. In this paper, we investigate what sensors and software tools we need to determine that we are working in ideal conditions, including good air quality, low CO2, etc. From an employee’s point of view, it is interesting if such monitoring devices can be easily used and combined. The evaluation should be possible and combinable by simple means. Why is this difficult? Considering that there is no common agreement among researchers on the definition of workplaces and new hybrid workplaces (i.e. office in company building, home office, and third office places) make the challenges even more complex. In this context, quantitative data from novel low-cost biosensors, such as for measuring carbon dioxide concentration distribution, highlighting the presence and attention of employees and their change in behavior within a working environment, are discussed, and the paper also provides an outlook towards novel research pathways for using a connected network of IoT devices and ambient biosensor technologies.