If you have allergies or asthma, you likely keep an eye on the local pollen forecast. While there’s not much you can do about the count when you step out into the world, humidifiers and air purifiers can help keep things under control around the house. Naturally, you have to turn these on when your eyes start to water, but that might not be the case soon enough.
San Francisco-based Bitfinder, a privately funded startup company, has introduced Awair, a smart air-quality device with sensors that measure temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, fine dust particles, and volatile organic compounds. With this data, it programs itself based on settings you provide for your home and gives your air a score, ranging from poor to fair. Awair is smart enough to assess your living space’s air quality data against your specific health conditions. Through the Awair app, the device can provide you with recommendations on how to change your behaviors so your allergies aren’t triggered the minute you get home.
However, one of Awair’s most unique features is its smart-home connectability. Through Wi-Fi, the product can connect to other smart home devices, such as the Nest smart thermostat. With its API-driven software and an additional device, Awair Connect, it can also work with devices like humidifiers and purifiers. Awair will turn them on (or off) for you and give you one less thing to worry about in terms of air quality.
Despite how much information it uses to function, Bitfinder says all of its data is encrypted over Transport Layer Security and AES 256 bit encryption to keep everything private.
You can preorder Awair on the product website for $149, and it’ll help you breathe easier by fall 2015.
