/
Infrastructure/
Specialized fields/
Heritage buildingsHeritage buildings, watched without harm.
Historic buildings move with the seasons, shake with traffic and works nearby, and hold collections that need a stable climate. Small battery sensors for cracks, tilt, vibration and indoor climate report over LoRaWAN to one record that conservation architects, engineers and curators use to decide when, and whether, to intervene.
Plan a deploymentHow it worksStation Builder- Industry
- Infrastructure
- Measurements
- 5
- Sources cited
- 6
Infrastructure · Heritage buildings
Understand before you repair
A crack in a medieval wall may be centuries old and harmless, or opening a little every year. Heritage practice asks owners to understand a building before they intervene, and a repair chosen without evidence can do more harm than the crack. Measuring over seasons gives the conservation team that understanding.
What is measured
Cracks, tilt, vibration and climate
Crack meters and tilt sensors on chosen cracks and walls record movement over the seasons. Geophones on foundations and fragile elements record vibration from traffic and nearby works, and climate sensors in rooms and display cases measure temperature, humidity and, where needed, pollutants around collections.
- Instruments
- Crack meters · Tilt sensors · Geophones · Indoor climate · Outdoor weather
The base node
Seasons apart from progress
The gateway’s node separates seasonal crack movement from progressive opening, compares vibration events with limits for fragile buildings, and alerts curators when humidity leaves the collection’s range. Every value is signed, so a decade of records can be trusted. Gaps are flagged, not filled.
Radio and links
Through thick walls, without wires
Battery sensors reach the gateway over LoRaWAN through thick masonry, with no cabling chased into historic fabric. The gateway reaches the owner over the public cellular network, and museums with their own networks can carry its traffic instead. The gateway is supervised.
- Links
- LoRaWAN · Public cellular · Wi-Fi
How it works
From a crack meter to a decision
A crack meter on a chancel wall reports through two winters and two summers. The node shows the crack opening and closing with the seasons and returning each year. The engineer advises against a major intervention, and the record keeps the evidence behind the decision.
From order to operation · Order
Scope the building and the questions
The scope reads the building’s history, previous surveys, known cracks, collections and the questions the conservation team needs answered. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the point plan with the reason for each, the reversible fixing methods, the reporting and a price per building and per year.
Plan a deploymentFrom order to operation · Survey
Survey with the conservation architect
Crews survey with the conservation architect and engineer: which cracks and walls tell the story, where vibration matters, which rooms and cases hold sensitive collections. They choose fixings that leave no lasting mark, check gateway coverage through thick walls and record everything.
From order to operation · Permits
Heritage consent
Any fixing to protected fabric needs heritage consent where the rules require it, and methods are agreed with the conservation officer. Collections staff agree sensor placement in cases. Every consent is kept with the building’s record, and every fixing can be reversed.
From order to operation · Build
Build small and quiet
Crack meters, tilt sensors, geophones, climate sensors, endpoints and the gateway are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each point is configured for its element and its limits, and housings are chosen to be discreet in historic interiors.
Open the Station BuilderFrom order to operation · Install
Install without harm
Crews fix sensors with reversible methods agreed in the consent, place climate sensors in rooms and cases, and mount the gateway out of sight. Nothing is chased into walls. Every point is photographed and drawn on the building’s plans. The fixing record is kept for removal.
From order to operation · Commission
Check, then leave it be
Each endpoint proves its identity. Crack meters are checked against a gauge reading, climate sensors against a reference, and geophones with a gentle test. Alerts are tested to the conservation team and curators, and then the building is left to tell its story.
From order to operation · Operate
Conserve on evidence
After a full year of seasons, the conservation team sees whether cracks open and close with the seasons or keep opening, how much nearby works shake the building and whether rooms hold their climate. Interventions are chosen, or avoided, on that evidence.
From order to operation · Maintain
Quiet visits
Visits are rare and planned around services and events: batteries changed on plan, climate sensors checked against a reference and points checked after works. Every change is recorded, so long series of movement and climate stay unbroken for the conservation record.
Book field servicesData products
For architects, curators and owners
Conservation architects and engineers receive crack and tilt trends; owners and contractors receive vibration reports during nearby works; curators and conservators receive climate records for collections; owners and heritage bodies receive the evidence behind intervention decisions. Each product carries its fixing and calibration.
See the data productsEvidence
Minimal intervention, on evidence
Every reading, alert and decision is signed and kept. Practice follows the international principles for architectural heritage, collection climate follows the European conservation standard, vibration follows the building vibration standard, and assessment uses the basis for existing structures. Records are open to review.
- Drawn against
- ICOMOS heritage principles · EN 15757 · DIN 4150-3 · ISO 13822
What you get
Structural and ground-movement monitoring
GNSS, InSAR, tilt, strain and fibre sensing on bridges, dams, slopes, tailings and pipelines, with alert thresholds set by the owner. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for infrastructure, mining and pipeline operators, transport agencies. Scale: Asset portfolios. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.
Talk to salesNext step
Plan heritage buildings with us
Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for heritage buildings. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.
Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio
01The place and its hazards
Where it runs, and what can go wrong.
Operating contextOwners of historic buildings, from churches to museums and castles, conserve them under heritage rules that favour minimal intervention and understanding before repair. Cracks and movement must be understood over seasons before structural work is justified, nearby works can shake fragile fabric, and collections need climates set by conservation standards.
Hazards
- Cracks and movement whose cause is not known
- Vibration from traffic and nearby works
- Damp and unstable humidity harming fabric and collections
- Interventions that do more harm than good
- Monitoring that damages what it protects
02What must be measured
What, where, how often, and under which rules.
Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.
| Measurement | Where | Cadence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crack width and tilt | Selected cracks and walls, chosen with the engineer | Continuous over seasons | 12 |
| Vibration | Foundations and sensitive elements near traffic or works | Continuous, events recorded in full | 34 |
| Indoor temperature and relative humidity | Rooms and display cases holding collections | Continuous | 5 |
| Outdoor weather | A small station or the nearest reference | Continuous | 6 |
| Indoor pollutants | Display and storage rooms where needed | Continuous | 5 |
03The observation stack
From one base unit to a network.
The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.
- 01
Base unit
A fabric point: a crack meter, tilt or climate sensor on a battery LoRaWAN endpoint, fixed reversibly.
Build a station → - 02
Site
A building: points chosen with the conservation team and a gateway on cellular.
Plan a site → - 03
Fleet
Every building of an owner run as one fleet, with one record.
Managed offers → - 04
Network
Owners, conservation bodies and researchers exchange heritage records through open standards.
The open protocol →
- 01Vibration and condition monitor
- 02Compact weather station
- 03Air quality monitor
- 04LPWAN endpoint
- 05LoRaWAN gateway
- 06Cellular modem/router
- 07Battery case
Radio and links
LoRaWAN
Battery sensors reach a gateway through thick walls with no cabling, so nothing is chased into historic fabric.
Radio and links
Public cellular
The gateway reaches the owner over the public network, without wiring the building.
Radio and links
Wi-Fi
Museums with their own networks can carry the gateway’s traffic.
Edge computeThe gateway’s node separates seasonal crack movement from progressive opening, flags vibration events from traffic or works against limits for fragile buildings, and alerts curators when humidity leaves the range set for the collection.
PowerSensors run on batteries for years; the gateway on building power with a battery.
04How it works
From the instrument to the product.
One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.
Heritage buildings: data path
– of 07
01 Instruments Measurement with sensor identity andcalibration 02 Field radio 03 Gateway 04 Backhaul 05 Site Consumer inbox deduplicates and applieseach record once into governed data 06 Data store Governed product through API, map orexport, correction-aware 07 Products OGC SensorThings APILoRaWANEN 15757 08 Power and structure Supplies 12 V DC to the field equipment Crack meters and tilt sensors Not in the reference kit 01 Vibration and condition monitor Analogue I/O · RS-485 · Ethernet 02 Compact weather station SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 03 Air quality monitor SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 04 LPWAN endpoint Analogue I/O · SDI-12 · RS-485 05 LoRaWAN gateway Ethernet · RF · GNSS antenna 06 Cellular modem/router Ethernet · USB · RS-232 Site MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B Governed data store Versioned, correction-aware Crack and tilt trends over seasons Vibration reports for nearby works Climate records for collections Evidence for intervention decisions 07 Battery case USB Analogue I/O RS-485 SDI-12 SDI-12 LoRaWAN Ethernet LTE/NR| Item | Equipment | Data ports | Protocols | Power in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Vibration and condition monitorAccelerometer-based vibration and temperature sensor for rotating machinery and structural condition monitoring. | Analogue I/ORS-485Ethernet | Modbus, OPC UA, MQTT 5 | 12 V DC |
| 02 | Compact weather stationAll-in-one or compact station for temperature, humidity, pressure, wind and rain at a site. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 03 | Air quality monitorParticulate and gas monitor (PM, NO2, O3, CO, SO2) for outdoor or indoor air. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 04 | LPWAN endpointBattery-powered endpoint on LoRaWAN, NB-IoT or LTE-M that carries one or more sensors. | Analogue I/OSDI-12RS-485 | LoRaWAN, OMA LwM2M, CoAP | Internal battery, Energy harvesting |
| 05 | LoRaWAN gatewayMulti-channel LoRaWAN gateway that forwards uplinks to a network server and schedules downlinks within duty limits. | EthernetRFGNSS antenna | LoRaWAN, MQTT 5 | PoE, 12 V DC |
| 06 | Cellular modem/routerLTE or NR modem or router that uses a public carrier or private network as backhaul. | EthernetUSBRS-232 | 3GPP E-UTRA air interface, 3GPP NR air interface, OMA LwM2M | 12 V DC, PoE |
| 07 | Battery casePortable battery pack with DC outputs for field kits. | USB | Modbus | AC mains, HV DC, USB PD |
How it scales
01 Instruments Arbitrary qualified sensors and instruments whosemeasurements are ingested with calibration, units,geometry, time, custody and uncertainty. ×n 02 Node The minimum useful deployable unit: server, ruggedappliance, radio node, sensor gateway, satelliteterminal, AI, scientific, vehicle or virtual node. Node Node agent 03 Site The minimum independently operable localgovernance and failure domain: one or more nodesplus local network, identity, policy, evidence,storage, products and operator surfaces.SITE
Node Node Node ×n 04 Cluster An optional scale or specialisation domain forscheduling, shared storage, accelerators or datalocality.CLUSTER
×n 05 Fleet Coordinates plans, acknowledgements,convergence evidence, update campaigns andcorrection propagation across nodes and sites.FLEET
Fleet controller ×n 06 Federation An exchange of products, capabilities, events orwork across approved, independently administeredtrust domains, using explicit trust, policy,data-locality, version and correction contracts.TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
×n Verifier Applications Data in the field Telemetry Control Data upstream Control Data upstream Control Exchange Evidence Events Exchange- Data in the field
- MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B; connectors for LoRaWAN, OPC UA and instrument buses.
- Telemetry
- OpenTelemetry OTLP.
- Control
- TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication; protobuf messages over gRPC or HTTP/2.
- Data upstream
- At-least-once publication with repeat-safe keys over the control channel or NATS JetStream; QUIC MAY be used on lossy links.
- Evidence
- DSSE-signed in-toto statements; SLSA provenance; SCITT transparency receipts.
- Events
- Event envelopes mapped to CloudEvents 1.0; channels described in AsyncAPI 3.
- Exchange
- OpenAPI 3.1; the OGC API family; SensorThings; STAC; WIS 2.0.
05From order to operation
Every step, from the first call to a running site.
The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.
- 01 Order
Scope the building and the questions
The scope reads the building’s history, previous surveys, known cracks, collections and the questions the conservation team needs answered. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the point plan with the reason for each, the reversible fixing methods, the reporting and a price per building and per year. 1
- 02 Survey
Survey with the conservation architect
Crews survey with the conservation architect and engineer: which cracks and walls tell the story, where vibration matters, which rooms and cases hold sensitive collections. They choose fixings that leave no lasting mark, check gateway coverage through thick walls and record everything.
- 03 Permits
Heritage consent
Any fixing to protected fabric needs heritage consent where the rules require it, and methods are agreed with the conservation officer. Collections staff agree sensor placement in cases. Every consent is kept with the building’s record, and every fixing can be reversed.
- 04 Build
Build small and quiet
Crack meters, tilt sensors, geophones, climate sensors, endpoints and the gateway are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each point is configured for its element and its limits, and housings are chosen to be discreet in historic interiors.
- 05 Install
Install without harm
Crews fix sensors with reversible methods agreed in the consent, place climate sensors in rooms and cases, and mount the gateway out of sight. Nothing is chased into walls. Every point is photographed and drawn on the building’s plans. The fixing record is kept for removal.
- 06 Commission
Check, then leave it be
Each endpoint proves its identity. Crack meters are checked against a gauge reading, climate sensors against a reference, and geophones with a gentle test. Alerts are tested to the conservation team and curators, and then the building is left to tell its story.
- 07 Operate
Conserve on evidence
After a full year of seasons, the conservation team sees whether cracks open and close with the seasons or keep opening, how much nearby works shake the building and whether rooms hold their climate. Interventions are chosen, or avoided, on that evidence. 15
- 08 Maintain
Quiet visits
Visits are rare and planned around services and events: batteries changed on plan, climate sensors checked against a reference and points checked after works. Every change is recorded, so long series of movement and climate stay unbroken for the conservation record.
06Data products and integration
What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.
Data products
- Crack and tilt trends over seasonsConservation architects and engineers
- Vibration reports for nearby worksOwners and contractors
- Climate records for collectionsCurators and conservators
- Evidence for intervention decisionsOwners and heritage bodies
Integration
- Conservation recordsTrends and reports join the building’s conservation record and plans.
- Collection managementClimate records are linked to rooms and objects in the collection system.
- Nearby worksContractors receive vibration events and limits for the building during their works.
Exchanged through OGC SensorThings API, LoRaWAN, EN 15757.
07Questions buyers ask
Before you scope it.
Will sensors damage the building?
Fixings are reversible and agreed in the heritage consent; nothing is chased into the fabric.
How long before we know about a crack?
A full year shows seasonal movement apart from progressive opening.
Can it protect us from nearby works?
It records vibration against limits for fragile buildings and alerts during the works.
Do collections get their own alerts?
Yes, when humidity or temperature leaves the range set for them.
08Resources
The sources behind this page.
Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.
- 1Principles for the Analysis, Conservation and Structural Restoration of Architectural HeritageICOMOS · 2003
- 2ISO 13822: Bases for design of structures, assessment of existing structuresInternational Organization for Standardization
- 3DIN 4150-3: Vibrations in buildings, effects on structuresDeutsches Institut für Normung
- 4ISO 4866: Mechanical vibration and shock, vibration of fixed structures, guidelines for measurementInternational Organization for Standardization
- 5EN 15757: Conservation of cultural property, specifications for temperature and relative humidityEuropean Committee for Standardization · 2010
- 6Guide to Instruments and Methods of Observation (WMO-No. 8)World Meteorological Organization
09Related
Use cases and solutions.
SolutionStructural and ground-movement monitoring
GNSS, InSAR, tilt, strain and fibre sensing on bridges, dams, slopes, tailings and pipelines, with alert thresholds set by the owner.Solutions for infrastructure →SolutionSensing as a Service
Observation networks designed, installed, operated and maintained for a monthly fee: weather, hydromet, air, seismic and environmental stations, with data delivered under a licence.Solutions for infrastructure →10Infrastructure: specialized fields
Other fields of this industry.
Specialized fieldConstruction sites
Dust, noise and vibration at the site boundary, wind for cranes and lifts, and site cameras, on cellular from the hoarding, so a site keeps its permit limits and answers its neighbours with evidence.The full field →Specialized fieldExcavations and tunnelling
Settlement and movement of the ground and nearby buildings, pore pressure, wall deflection and vibration during deep excavations and tunnel drives, with automatic total stations and GNSS, under the observational method.The full field →Specialized fieldStructural health of major structures
Vibration, strain, movement and wind on long-span bridges, towers, stadium roofs and tall buildings in service, on fibre and an industrial network, so engineers see how a structure behaves between inspections.The full field →Specialized fieldLevees and coastal defences
Pore pressure and seepage, settlement, water levels, waves and overtopping on levees, dikes and sea walls, on LoRaWAN and microwave, so defence managers see weak sections before the flood finds them.The full field →Bring us the site.
Plan a deployment, configure a station, model it in the Studio or talk to sales. The form names who receives your details.
Plan a deploymentStation BuilderOpen the StudioTalk to salesRequest a quote