‘Smart’ Participation for Fine-Scale Urban Heat Sensing Testing Smartphones as Temperature Sensors

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-936-0_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Participatory Sensing; Urban Climate; Air Temperature; Smartphones

Abstract

Accurate near-ground air temperature data at fine spatial and temporal scale is necessary for urban heat studies and effective mitigative action. However, inhibitive cost for establishing high-precision sensor networks limits the availability of such data. Several studies have explored crowdsourced climate data to overcome this gap, leveraging the advantages of big data and Internet of Things (IoT) and community engagement for improved awareness of climate impacts. Over the last decade few studies have explored the possibility of smartphones for sensing air temperature. If effective this could prove an inexpensive alternative for crowdsourcing temperature data. However, an evidence gap exists to establish this as a clear and reliable method. This paper addresses this gap by conducting a quasi-experimental study with 180 volunteers in a college campus. It aims to assess whether battery temperature data from mid-range smartphones can reliably predict air temperature at a campus scale, using a much smaller dataset than previously attempted. Volunteers use existing Android software applications to retrieve smartphone battery temperature data which is then uploaded via digital survey forms. This crowdsourced data is validated against air temperature data from a portable weather station installed on campus. Statistical analysis of the dataset showed no correlation between individual data pairs. However, a paired two one sided test (TOST) for equivalence suggests that the smartphone battery temperatures were statistically equivalent to the corresponding air temperature recorded by the weather station with a 95% confidence interval. Further experiments are needed to assess applicability in different conditions.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Reshmi Ravindran
AU  - Manju G. Nair
AU  - Bhavya Vinod Kumar
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/29
TI  - ‘Smart’ Participation for Fine-Scale Urban Heat Sensing Testing Smartphones as Temperature Sensors
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Civil Engineering and Architecture for Sustainable Infrastructure Development and Environment (CEASIDE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 243
EP  - 256
SN  - 3005-155X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-936-0_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-936-0_18
ID  - Ravindran2025
ER  -