mCloud Technologies (MCLD.V) is combining AssetCare, its artificial intelligence powered HVAC and indoor air quality platform, with air purification technology based on active particle control through a partnership with SecureAire LLC.
If you don’t know, HVAC stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and it’s what makes life bearable in the dog days of summer, which we should probably also add are coming. We can feel hints of it on the breeze and the nights are getting warmer. We know we’re probably going to be hit with it any day now. And if you’re in British Columbia, or really anywhere along the Pacific coast, that also means forest fires and deterioration of breathing quality.
Fire and smoke doesn’t respect territorial boundaries, and here’s the United States federal government’s dire prognostication on what we can expect:
“Above normal significant large fire potential will begin developing across Southwest Oregon in June and then expand to include all but the Northwest quarter of the region by August.”
For those of us in the lower mainland that could result in nights where everything smells like a pine burning stove, or it could be thick particulate-laden fog impeding visibility, and making those fashionable COVID-19 masks stick around for another season. We take it for granted that stores and our places of work will be refuges from the pine-fresh hellscape that is our environment mid-August, but that’s not necessarily the case.
The partnership will expand both company’s respective footprints in commercial facility management. mCloud’s AssetCare platform offers a completely automated HVAC solution enabling their clients to offer indoor air quality that exceeds commercial building standards established by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (“ASHRAE”).
“mCloud has taken this position to help our current customer base in Connected Buildings by joining forces with SecureAire across North America. We have set up our teams to partner and target the millions of restaurant and retail spaces re-opening their doors in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Barry Po, mCloud’s president.
The combined system would deploy AssetCare through commercial IoT thermostats with humanity and air quality sensors, which would adapt to changes in the atmosphere to ventilate and manage building airflow based on how the building is being used. SecureAire offers an air filtration system that’s being used today in more than 60 hospitals, based on semiconductor clean room technology that uses managed airflow to drive contaminants in the air to an electrostatic field that supplies the power required to oxidize and kill dangerous pathogens and viruses such as COVID-19.
SecureAire and mCloud can also provide managers with analytics to measure and verify air quality in real time.
“The key to bringing customers back and returning to profitability will come from assuring them these establishments are safe. This combined AssetCare solution with SecureAire will enable business owners to confidently reassure customers, employees, and local health authorities they have taken decisive action to minimize the risk of infection in their businesses,” said Dr. Po.
mCloud has also released a 10-step readiness checklist to help business owners evaluate the status of their indoor air quality, among other precautions, to ensure that their places of businesses are safe for their customers and staff. The guide includes recommendations and research from epidemiologists and healthy building experts that emphasize the importance of indoor air quality in limiting the spread of COVID-19.
—Joseph Morton