Continuous indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring gives commercial property teams a way to satisfy the data requirements for BOMA BEST, LEED, and WELL certifications automatically — without relying on annual third-party assessments or intermittent sampling. Rather than producing a snapshot of building performance on a specific test day, a continuous IAQ monitoring system like the one Cirkuit has built with InBiot generates the compliance-ready evidence that certifying bodies actually want to see: ongoing, verifiable data across the metrics each standard requires.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans spend approximately 90% of their time indoors, where concentrations of some pollutants are 2 to 5 times higher than outdoor levels. That underlying fact is what drives the data rigor of modern IAQ certification standards — and it’s why the annual-testing model was always a compromise rather than a solution.
Why does snapshot IAQ testing fall short for BOMA BEST, LEED, and WELL?
The traditional IAQ assessment model sends a third-party firm into a building for a few days, once or twice a year. This snapshot approach has two structural problems for certification purposes: it is expensive and recurring, and it only captures performance under whatever conditions happened to exist on the day of the test. Seasonal variation, occupancy changes, operational adjustments, and HVAC maintenance cycles all affect air quality — but the snapshot misses most of them.
Certification bodies are increasingly aware of this gap. The WELL Performance Rating is explicitly built around continuous monitoring data, not periodic assessments. Buildings that rely on snapshot testing for WELL certification face a harder path to the Performance Rating tier than those that have deployed continuous monitoring infrastructure.
How does continuous IAQ monitoring simplify BOMA BEST, LEED, and WELL reporting?
A continuous monitoring architecture captures thousands of data points per sensor per year — compared to the handful of readings a traditional third-party visit produces. When the data has already been collected, compliance reporting becomes a matter of formatting and export, not a project requiring outside coordination.
Cirkuit’s integration of InBiot’s MICA sensing devices into its LoRaWAN platform makes this practical at the building level:
- WELL Building Standard: The MICA WELL device monitors all parameters required for WELL Certification and the WELL Performance Rating, covering Air Quality (A01) and Thermal Comfort (T01) — including PM2.5, PM10, TVOCs, CO2, CO, Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), and Formaldehyde.
- LEED (BD+C & ID+C): Continuous data supports Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) credit requirements, including enhanced IAQ strategies, assessment, and performance monitoring. The MICA device is a direct fit for LEED certification.
- BOMA BEST: On-demand reporting simplifies the submission process, reducing reliance on third-party publications and eliminating the scheduling delays that come with coordinating external firms.
- RESET Air: The MICA hardware holds RESET Air Accreditation (Grade B), meeting the precision and resolution standards required for this global data standard.
When the monitoring infrastructure is in place, formal IAQ reports for each of these standards can be generated on demand — rather than as a periodic project requiring external coordination.
Why does Cirkuit use LoRaWAN as the connectivity layer for IAQ monitoring?
The use of a private LoRaWAN network as the connectivity layer is a deliberate architectural decision that changes the economics of IAQ monitoring for buildings that already have LoRaWAN deployed.
Because IAQ sensors share the same network infrastructure already used for water leak detection, power metering, and occupancy sensing, the marginal cost of adding air quality monitoring is significantly lower than deploying a standalone system. The ROI calculation changes substantially when the network is already in place.
On a payback basis, the total cost of a continuous IAQ monitoring system through Cirkuit is typically comparable to a single year of traditional third-party IAQ testing — with the difference that continuous monitoring doesn’t stop after year one, and produces a certification record that compounds in value over time.
What IAQ sensors does this system use, and what do they measure?
The sensor hardware at the center of the Cirkuit system is InBiot’s MICA and MICA WELL devices. Several characteristics drove that selection.
The MICA is one of the few devices globally combining Works with WELL, RESET Grade B, and European manufacturing — a verified accreditation, not a marketing badge. The sensing suite covers the full range of pollutants that modern IAQ standards require: PM2.5, PM10, TVOCs, CO2, CO, Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), and Formaldehyde. With a rated lifespan of over ten years and a tool-free installation process, the hardware is designed to remain in place with minimal maintenance once deployed — a meaningful consideration for buildings targeting multi-year certification tracks.
What does continuous IAQ monitoring actually change for building operators?
The measurable shift is this: IAQ stops being an annual compliance exercise and becomes a real-time operational signal.
Building operators with continuous monitoring in place can see how occupancy patterns, HVAC adjustments, or seasonal changes affect air quality in real time — and respond before conditions deteriorate rather than after a test flags them. The certification reporting becomes easier as a consequence of that operational shift, not the other way around. The data is already there; producing the compliance report is the easy part.
If you’re working through IAQ requirements for BOMA BEST, LEED, or WELL and want to understand how continuous monitoring fits your certification path, we’re happy to walk through how it works in practice.