November was another big month for open hardware certifications; with close to 73 new projects certified from a variety of domains. The certification website and API have been up for a while and there is a growing awareness about just how easy it is to certify your project. While there are a number of new projects being certified this month there were also a number of tried and true maker favorites now applying to formally certify their projects. If you live in the western United States or Australia you probably spent a few months of this year dreading going outdoors due to the extreme wildfires and their associated air pollution. Similarly, during the early days of the pandemic more than one media outlet commented on how the pandemic induced economic contraction had radically improved outdoor air quality in certain areas. Air quality and ventilation were big topics in 2020, and consequently the open source hardware community jumped at the opportunity to provide solutions for environmental monitoring. In November OSHWA certified three distinct sensors that can be used to measure various aspects of air quality. The first sensor comes from Sparkfun, who certified a collection of environmental sensors and breakout boards including the Sparkfun Air Quality Sensor – SGP30 (QWIIC). This particular sensor module can be used to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are the gaseous compounds that evaporate out of compounds like solvents, glues, and paints. Another group, HiMinds of Sweden certified an environmental sensor that includes, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, carbon dioxide, VOCs, and sound. You can read more about this project in the developer’s medium post. Finally a Russian developer, Andray Lamchenko, certified a simple temperature and humidity sensor with an integrated e-ink display.