Wave App: how do the graphs reflect the raw radon data?

How to understand the graphs and data

Updated over a week ago

Graphs in the App

1. The Overview Section

In the Wave App home screen, you can see current values of you monitor's sensors and your overall air quality status. This is an overview of your most recent data. The "home screen" of a Wave Radon is used in the example below:

  1. Radon: is measured hourly, and is expressed as a 24hr rolling average. In this example, it means 163bq/m3 was the average level of radon in the last 24 hours.

  2. Humidity: measured every 5 minutes. 52% humidity is the most recent level measured in the last 5 minutes.

  3. Temperature: measured every 5 minutes. 21 degrees Celsius is the most recent measurement in the last 5 minutes.

2. More Detail

If you choose any one of radon, temperature, or humidity, you will be brought to another screen that has more detail. Using radon as an example, the data points are plotted on a graph and show your averages over certain periods of time:

  • 48 Hours

  • 1 Week

  • 1 Month

  • 1 Year

In the example below, the average level of radon is 70 bq/m3 for the last year:

Therefore, the example used in this article displayed:

162 bq/m3 is the average level of radon in the last 24hrs
but
70 bq/m3 is the average for the last year

You could then also explore your averages over the last 48hrs, week, or month. If you had consistently high readings for over 1 month, we would recommend contacting a radon professional, and that is why it is so important to be able to visualise your data.

Graphs in the online Dashboard

1. Dashboard Overview

The Dashboard overview offers you customizable tiles for whichever air quality aspect you want to focus on most:

2. More Detail

To go into more detail, select one of the tiles, or go to the "devices" section. Here you can see the details of measurements taken in each location, and also change the views to show you data collected over specific periods of time.

In the example below, you can see a detailed view of data collected by a Wave over the last month.

About the graphs and algorithms:

The algorithm in the app interprets the raw radon data and builds a plot by smoothing out the noise and other fine-scale / rapid phenomena.

This is a trade-off, of course: the choice is between an accurate but less readable display of spikes and a smoother and more readable plot, at the expense of greater accuracy.

It is more important to look at patterns and behaviour over a longer period of time. For example, a single spike in radon would not warrant installing a mitigation system - what really matters are your long term averages.

Radon should be measured over a period of time to determine an average level due to the nature of its fluctuations, as opposed to humidity or temperature which are instant measurements.

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