Despite the impact it can have on our health, we rarely monitor the quality of air that we are breathing. The new AirVisual Node keeps tabs on both indoor and outdoor air quality. It also provides recommendations to help improve the wellbeing of its users.
When air quality is poor, it can cause headaches, fatigue and anxiety, while in the long-term it can increase the chances of heart disease and stroke, among other health problems.
Air quality monitors can help identify poor quality air so that users can make changes to their environment, and they do appear to be becoming more widely available. Last year, for example, the Speck and Awair monitors, among others, were released. AirVisual says, however, that its new Node monitor is "the most precise consumer air quality monitor on the market." (Though it's not actually "on the market" yet.)
The Node combines a particle sensor, a CO2 sensor, a temperature sensor and a humidity sensor. Information is displayed on an 800 x 480 resolution 5-in LED screen and the device is powered by a rechargeable Li-ion battery. The battery is said to provide five hours of use and is charged via micro USB.
Four areas are tracked by the Node. Outdoor air quality data is pulled in from the internet over Wi-Fi from the closest official monitoring station. This can then be compared with the air quality in the user's indoor environment.
Indoor air quality is tracked in real-time, with the device providing a fine particulate matter (PM2.5) score. This gives an indication of the amount of small particles around that have the potential to damage the throat and lungs, or even to enter the bloodstream.
The Node's confinement metric measures CO2 levels, which can be used as an indication of when air has become stagnant and contains less oxygen, more bacteria, more mold and other harmful fumes. An accompanying app for Android and iOS provides alerts.
A variety of insights can be gained from the data provided by the Node. Higher pollution readings indoors than outdoors, for example, indicate a window should be opened for ventilation, while high indoor and outdoor readings may indicate that polluted outdoor air is getting into the room.
The Node provides recommendations to help lower risk to the user and to improve wellbeing. In addition, it provides a three-day air-quality forecast and information about key pollutants for over 5,000 cities in over 25 countries. A crowd-sourced map, meanwhile, shows what is happening in a user's neighborhood.
An Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign is ongoing for the AirVisual. At the time of writing, pledges start from from US$139. Assuming all goes to plan with the roll-out, shipping is expected from April.
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