Environmental sensors
What every Joan device already senses
Every Joan e-ink display already tracks temperature and humidity, live in Joan Analytics from day one. Sound level and air quality sensing are coming next, built into the same fleet, no separate sensor network to buy or install.
Your walls already have sensors on them
Every Joan e-ink display mounted outside a meeting room already carries environmental sensors. They have quietly tracked temperature and humidity in the background while doing their main job, showing whether the room is free. That data already lives in Joan Analytics today, for any office running Joan displays, with no extra sensor to buy and nothing to install.
What you get today
- Comfort dashboard: average temperature and humidity across every monitored space, in one view.
- Trends over time: days, weeks or months, so you catch the room that always runs hot, or confirm whether last month’s HVAC fix actually worked.
- Export whenever you need it: pull the history out for any period, no waiting on IT.
The next generation adds sound and air quality
The next hardware revision of Joan 6 RE and Joan 6 Pro adds two more sensors: one that reports a sound level, never audio, and one that reports an air quality index alongside temperature, humidity and pressure. Both are indicator-grade, built to show trends and comfort bands rather than certified readings, and they are currently completing hardware validation. These are new sensors on new hardware, not a software update to what you already have.
THE PROBLEM
Comfort you can’t see is comfort you can’t fix
Noise, stale air, dry winters and hot afternoons are invisible day to day. They surface late, as complaints, sick days or disengaged teams, and by then facility teams are guessing at causes instead of fixing them. Standalone air quality and acoustic sensor networks exist, but they cost more to buy and install than most floors can justify.
HOW IT WORKS
Your fleet becomes a comfort mesh
Joan 6 RE and Joan 6 Pro sit outside the room, on the wall or glass, so each device senses the corridor, lobby or open-plan area around it, not the sealed room interior.
Spread across a floor, the fleet you already own becomes a distributed comfort mesh: floor-plan comfort heatmaps and zone comfort scores in Joan Analytics, threshold alerts to Slack, Teams or email when a zone drifts out of range, and no new hardware to install.
ANALYTICS
Air quality data
Every temperature and humidity reading rolls up into Joan Analytics automatically, so you see comfort trends across a whole floor, not just one room. Sound level and an air quality index join the same dashboard once the next hardware generation ships.
Why this matters
Independent, peer-reviewed research ties each of these conditions to how people feel and perform at work.
61
%Higher cognitive scores
In well-ventilated, low-VOC office air, compared with a conventional office (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, COGfx study).
50
%Midpoint of the humidity sweet spot
The comfort and health range is 40 to 60% relative humidity. Outside it, respiratory infections and irritation rise (Arundel et al., Environmental Health Perspectives).
8.9
%Lower task performance
At 30°C, compared with a 21 to 22°C baseline (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).
Frequently asked questions
Where exactly do the sensors measure, inside the room or outside it?
Outside. Joan 6 RE and Joan 6 Pro are mounted on the wall or glass next to a meeting room, so they sense the corridor, lobby or open-plan area around them, not the sealed room interior.
Is this a certified CO2 or air quality monitor?
No. Both sensors are indicator-grade: they report trends and comfort bands rather than certified absolute values, and there is no particulate matter (PM2.5) reading or true NDIR CO2 reading.
Do I need extra hardware to get temperature and humidity monitoring on Joan?
No extra hardware or subscription needed, but it has to be a genuine Joan device, not a repurposed tablet, since the sensor is already built into every Joan e-ink display. If you already have Joan displays installed, temperature and humidity insights are live in Joan Analytics today.
When will sound and air quality sensing be available?
The new sensors are in hardware validation now. We will confirm a rollout date once testing is complete. Talk to our team if you would like to be notified first.
Will sound level and air quality monitoring require a hardware upgrade?
Yes. Sound level and air quality index sensing will ship with the next hardware revision of Joan 6 RE and Joan 6 Pro, currently in hardware validation. No separate sensor network to deploy, just the new device generation once it becomes available.
What exactly do the new sensors measure, and what don’t they?
The microphone reports only a calibrated sound level in dB(A), averaged, peak and background, never audio. The air and climate sensor reports a VOC-based air quality index, an estimated CO2-equivalent, and the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure of the surrounding area. Neither measures particulate matter (PM2.5 or PM10), a certified NDIR CO2 reading, or formaldehyde. Both are indicator-grade: built to show trends and comfort bands, not to serve as a certified life-safety instrument.