Small, Smart, Fast, and Cheap: Monitors for Household Energy Interventions

The sad truth of household health and energy interventions at large-scale is that they often do not work or, what amounts to nearly the same thing for government agencies and funders, we have no effective way to tell if they do. There is a new class of IT-based datalogging sensors, however, that allow for objective, unobtrusive, and inexpensive monitoring of pollution, stove use, behavior, and other outcomes of interest. Some transmit wirelessly, while others must be downloaded in situ. These are revolutionizing the ability to design technologies and dissemination methods to reach larger populations with greater impact.