Effective monitoring of fitness for human habitation standards in UK social housing

Covid-19 has had a dramatic impact on the way we use our homes and in the context of social housing this generates numerous challenges to residents and landlords. People have spent more time in their own homes than ever before, leading to higher levels of disrepair. Meanwhile, repairing properties is difficult and costly for landlords as a result of social distancing requirements, and landlords are facing higher levels of rent arrears due to wider financial impacts.

The need to find smarter ways of improving housing quality is made more urgent by the introduction of new legislation to the sector. On the 20th of December 2018 the _Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018_ received royal assent. The bill received widespread bipartisan support from politicians as well as high-profile members of the housing industry.

Switchee will design and accredit a sensor that includes CO2, volatile organic compounds (VOC), temperature, light and humidity monitors and that can be deployed at low cost into social housing properties and communicate over the GSM (Cellular) network. The sensor will communicate via the new Switchee Econa home hub.

Switchee will also develop a FFHH landlord accessible SaaS portal and associated complex and proprietary data algorithms. These purpose-built algorithms will make an assessment on the property's current and future predicted state with respect to compliance with the FFHH Act.