The Green Innovation Hub in Almere is building a place where innovation becomes visible and tangible. Cobra Climate provides the foundation: reliable, real-time data on air quality, temperature and energy use — so that visitors and staff can not only find inspiration, but do so in a healthy environment.
A Place Where Tomorrow's City Takes Shape
CityLab Almere, also known as GIH 3.0, is the latest initiative of the Green Innovation Hub. In a dedicated demo space, businesses, educational institutions and government bodies come together to discover and apply data-driven technologies for urban development. It is a place designed for inspiration, collaboration and the development of concrete solutions for the city of the future. But an inspiring space starts with a healthy one.
Air Quality Is Not a Side Issue
In an environment where people collaborate intensively — during presentations, ideation sessions and demonstrations — CO2 levels rise quickly. Elevated CO2 concentrations demonstrably lead to fatigue, reduced concentration and lower performance. At a place like CityLab, where sharp thinking is central, that is simply not acceptable. Measuring is therefore not a luxury, but a basic requirement for a well-functioning work environment.
Four Sensors, One Central View
Cobra Climate installs four indoor climate sensors across the GIH complex: two in the green house (inside and outside) and two on the main workspace floor. The sensors continuously measure CO2, temperature, humidity and air pressure. Via WiFi, readings are automatically stored in the Cobra Climate cloud every ten minutes — no extra hardware boxes or complex installation required. The result is a single, centralised view of the indoor climate, available from anywhere in the world, in real time.
Smart Integration with the GIH Infrastructure
What makes this project distinctive is its integration with the Green Innovation Hub's broader data strategy. Sensor data is made available via MQTT to the dashboards of GIH partners — such as the Civity Dashboard — allowing multiple systems to use the same measurements simultaneously. In addition, occupancy detection is added through an API connection, enabling a direct relationship to be established between the number of people in a space and the CO2 concentration. This also makes it possible to adjust ventilation and energy consumption based on actual data.
Health Measures You Can Actually See
One of CityLab's goals is to make innovative technologies visible to visitors. The Cobra Climate solution fits seamlessly into that mission. The sensors have no distracting lights or screens and blend into the interior, but the data they produce is immediately accessible to everyone through the dashboard. This allows visitors to see for themselves that GIH does not just talk about sustainability and health — it measures and proves it. That builds trust, both among staff and among the organisations that visit CityLab.
Backing Intuition with Facts
In our experience, measuring the indoor climate is always the starting point for smarter decisions. Whether it's adjusting ventilation, optimising energy consumption or demonstrating that a building meets regulatory standards — without data, it's guesswork. At the Green Innovation Hub, we close that loop: the sensor measures, the platform analyses, and the environment improves. That is precisely what a Center of Excellence should do.