Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Smart Home
  3. News

The Airy Box uses plants to purify your air, no electricity required

Erika Rawes
By

In addition to sprucing up your home, some studies have found that plants can improve indoor air quality. Airy, a plug-less air purifier, recently developed a new version of its air cleaning system, the Airy Box.

First introduced on Kickstarter back in 2015, the Airy system is a plant pot that also serves as an air purifier. The Airy Box, currently available on Indiegogo, is nearly 20 inches wide and designed to hold two or three plants, which allows each individual system to have more air-cleaning power. The air purifier uses the chimney effect to draw dirty air into the bottom of the pot and uses substrates to filter out larger particles. The roots pull toxins out of the air better than the leaves, the Airy team claims.

Recommended Videos

Inventor Helge Knickmeier and the Airy team say that indoor air can more harmful for some than outdoor air, a claim supported by the  . Airy claims its system makes it so a plant filters air up to eight times more effectively than a plant in a regular old pot. NASA research supports some of these claims. “The plant root-soil zone appears to be the most effective area for removing volatile organic chemicals. Therefore, maximizing air exposure to the plant root-soil area should be considered when placing plants in building for best air filtration,” according to NASA Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement report, which was published back in 1989.

Since the company’s official launch in January 2016, they have shipped roughly 20,000 original Airy units to 50 countries. The original Airy is priced at around $55 on Amazon and the new, larger version of the Airy is priced at $79 on Indiegogo.

As always, it’s a good idea to exercise caution with crowdfunded products. Backing a product is not the same thing as buying it from a place like Amazon, even if it has a history of releasing similar products like the Airy.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Erika Rawes
Erika Rawes
Smart Home Evergreen Coordinator
Erika became a professional writer in 2010, and her work is published all over the web on sites ranging from USA Today to…
What I learned after tracking my home’s air quality for a week
The AirThings View Plus is an indoor air quality monitor.

I set up the AirThings View Plus in my office more than a week ago to measure the indoor air quality and to test whether differing conditions impacted my workflow. I learned several things -- some surprising, some not so much -- about air quality in the home and how it can be improved.

Does everyone need an air quality sensor? Probably not, but if you just don't feel right or you're afraid your air quality is affecting your work performance, a sensor like the View Plus can help.

Read more
Molekule adds an Air Score to its Air Pro purifier
molekule enables air score pro

Molekule, one of the leading manufacturers of air purifers, has announced a new feature for its Air Pro purifiers. This new feature, called the Molekule Air Score, provides an easy-to-understand air quality score that shows users the levels of particles and chemicals in the surrounding air.

Molekule states that the score is combined with one of their new sensors in the Air Pro purifiers. That sensor can capture nearby VOCs (volatile organic compounds like aerosol sprays or preservatives), humidity, and CO2 levels. Then, the sensor uses the data from the air to improve the device's 'Auto Protect' mode, which is what the Air Pro uses to adjust fan speeds automatically.

Read more
Next-gen AirPods could let others override your ANC
A woman wearing AirPods 3rd Generation while exercising.

Ever since Apple debuted its now-iconic AirPods true wireless earbuds, it has been expanding what these handy devices can do. The list now includes hands-free access to Siri, enhanced hearing with Conversation Boost, head-tracking spatial audio, and the super-popular combo of active noise cancellation (ANC) and transparency mode. But if a recently published patent application is any indication, Apple could soon let a trusted person remotely disable ANC mode, just by uttering a pre-determined word or phrase.

The patent application, entitled "Interrupt for noise cancelling audio devices" was first spotted by AppleInsider, and it details -- at great length -- how AirPods owners could allow their attention to be grabbed by another person, by automatically shutting off ANC mode when that person says a specific passphrase.

Read more