IoT Looking After the Water Quality of Swimming Pools

There are plenty of fitness clubs and sports gyms who take great care that the water in their swimming pools and bathing facilities is clean and safe. Using a variety of water processing technology and on-site staff working day after day to monitor the water quality, they are able to maintain the swimming pool water in a state that is comfortable and hygienic. Water quality management systems that utilize IoT are achieving optimization of monitoring work and amelioration of labor shortages everywhere that water quality inspection is a daily task.

What Is Needed to Consistently and Reliably Monitor the Water Quality in Pools?

In recent years, various companies in the highly-competitive fitness club industry have been making every effort to increase their membership numbers by accommodating a variety of customer needs, with things like new services and specialization targeted at specific groups, such as women, seniors, and those who need help achieving a specific goal. Many clubs use the clean and safe water in their pools as a selling point, for example by working to limit the chlorine odor and make the water kinder to the skin, or by drawing attention to the high transparency of the water. Comfortable and hygienic water maintenance and control in swimming pools are an important amenity service for potential members who are particularly health conscious.

Water quality inspection in the pool is done by on-site staff based on predetermined inspection procedures, several times a day without fail, with the measurement record kept at the site as well as being reported to the manager. These jobs are, by-and-large, reliant on human effort, and so when on-site staff are switched out or when there is a labor shortage, many clubs face the challenge of training new employees so as to ensure safe and reliable water quality management operations. In cases where the water quality measurement information and know-how are not sufficiently conveyed to, and shared among, employees, gaps can develop in the precision of measurement. In other situations, the managers who receive and check water quality management reports from the site are not actually present at the site very often, and there is no effective way to optimize the oversight itself.

By Employing IoT, We Can Greatly Improve the Efficiency of Water Quality Monitoring

The last few years have seen a rapid increase in the practicality of IoT technology, and we can actually use this technology to massively improve the quality of management and water quality measurement in swimming pools. For example, we can attach a residual chlorine meter, capable of indefinite automatic measurement operations, to the pool’s water filter, allowing for automation of measurement. By uploading the measurement values to a cloud server by way of an IoT wireless unit, it is possible to avoid risks of mechanical trouble such as air entrainment. On top of that, measurement data for chlorine remnant density, measured at regular intervals by on-site staff every day, is sent to a smartphone using a measuring device (WATER it) equipped with Bluetooth, and by automatically accumulating this on a cloud server, instantaneous unitary management of measurement data is made possible. By connecting the devices for measuring air temperature, humidity, and water temperature up to the IoT wireless unit, all this data can also be stored in the cloud, enabling paperless management.

Improving Operations by Analyzing Measurement Data in the Cloud

Managers can analyze the measurement data stored in the cloud server to check the management status on the ground and take actions needed for improvement if necessary. For example, if a measurement point is found to be in error, direction can be given remotely to staff who measured the data, and even in the event of a staff turnover work can be stabilized in just a short amount of time. By enabling the visualization and sharing of water quality management from anywhere, we can simplify and speed up the handling of errors that in the past would have required a significant amount of time and effort to resolve once they were noticed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to unify information on water/pool temperature, humidity, and so on?: We have prepared an IoT wireless unit for analog devices with a 4–20 mA output signal, so unification is possible.
Are things like graphing of the measurement data and CSV download of the data possible?: Yes, they are possible. However, depending on the nature of your request and the model you choose, it may be necessary to separately prepare service programs for those purposes.
What is the transmission method used by the IoT wireless unit?: The IoT wireless unit uses Sigfox and 3G, but we can also provide alternative proposals based on your purpose of use and installation environment.