A cool gadget that checks the air quality at home and office.
However, all of these has come at a price. The planet isn’t as green as it once was and global air quality has deteriorated a great deal. While CO2 might be great for plants and other floral species, it isn’t exactly peachy for human beings. As a result, the prevalence of respiratory infections has increased considerably as have diseases like lung cancer, tracheal cancer, and bronchitis just to mention a few.
Do you check air quality in your home?
There are numerous health benefits associated with carefully monitoring the quality of the air that you breathe. The effect of poor air quality become apparent over time and because breathing poor air doesn’t get you ill overnight, many people tend not to pay particular attention to this truly vital aspect of their health and wellbeing. Add to this, the hectic schedules that many people have to navigate on a daily basis, there seemingly isn’t enough time to worry about the nasty particulate matter in the air.
Keeping yourself safe from the polluted air is something that involves a lot of activities and precautionary measures. These can range from simply shutting the windows when it gets windy outside or not cracking open the car windows when driving during the summer. What if there was a handy gizmo that could help you with monitoring air quality? Well, there is…
In this article, the AirVisual Node will be discussed in some detail.
What does this gadget do?
The AirVisual Node boasts a stunning, sleek, and attractive ring-shaped design. The curved edges are well-rounded, making the device add a certain standout appeal wherever it is placed. In terms of size and weight, it is handy and easy to carry about if needed, with an appreciable screen size that helps you easily read the information displayed on it. The device buttons are also easily located on the top making it simple to use even when busy or in a hurry.
A companion phone app for those who wish to monitor air quality on the go, is also available, as well as a dedicated website.
The AirVisual Node is also more than just a fancy design as it packs a host of rich features and functions. It has vents on both the top and bottom of the device, with a tiny fan that works constantly in the background. An air quality monitoring device would be incomplete without sensors that actually monitor air quality and this device comes fully loaded with all the essentials. It has sensors for all the major air quality parameters. This device also comes with a rechargeable battery, WiFi capability, as well as a Micro USB power input.
The AirVisual Node can be used for indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring.
- Display: This device comes with a 5-inch color LED display, with an 800 x 480 screen resolution which means there is no difficulty in reading information off the screen. You can adjust the brightness of the screen display as the device comes with an adjustable brightness setting. There are 5 levels to which you can adjust the brightness depending on your preference.
- Sensors: The AirVisual Node is packed full with all the necessary air quality monitoring sensors. What’s more, unlike many air quality monitoring devices on the market, the AirVisual Node makes use of actual premium-grade sensors that deliver medical-grade readings. There is a CO2 sensor, a PM2.5 sensor, as well as sensors for temperature and humidity measurements.This device uses the SenseAir S8 Sensor for measuring CO2 levels. This sensor is a mini NDIR (Non-Dispersive Infrared) sensor that also has a calibrated ABC sensor. The PM2.5 sensor is the legacy AirVisual AVPM25b sensor that can analyze both PM2.5 and PM10 values. There are also sensors for temperature and humidity and both have the ability to handle a wide range of temperature and humidity values.
- Accuracy: One of the advantages of incorporating high-quality, medical grade sensors in a device like this is that you can be sure of accurate readings. The SenseAir S8 sensor for CO2 measurements has an accuracy of ±0.02% volume CO2 ±3% of reading. The AVPM25b sensor for PM2.5 measurements has an accuracy of ±8% of reading. This sensor also has the ability to detect particle sizes ranging from o.3μm – 2.5μm.
- Power Options: The device comes with a rechargeable 1,850mAh Li-Ion battery that delivers up to 5 hours of power on a full charge. There is also a Micro USB power input that allows you to hook up your device to a solar panel or an external power pack to provide power when you need to use the device for a longer period of time.
- Device Buttons: Interaction on the box itself is done with 4 device buttons which have been placed on top of it to ensure optimal user experience. These buttons help the user to adjust the settings on the device to suit the user’s preferences.
- Off-grid Functionality: This device has off-grid functionality, which means that it can function without an internet connection. This is especially useful when the device has to be used in remote areas that do not have access to communication infrastructure.
- Connectivity: The Node comes with lots of handy features that ensure maximum connectivity. It has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz capability. It also has an internal SBM server which means it can access MacOS, Windows and Linux Machines. It has a companion smartphone app which is compatible with both Android and iOS platforms.
The user turns on the device and is asked to connect to a nearby WiFi network. There are two ways to do this; with the device or through a paired smartphone. It is a lot easier to use a smartphone since it will most probably be a touchscreen device. The gadget doesn’t have a touchscreen and using the previously mentioned device buttons to connect to WiFi might be a bit tedious. Another reason why using a smartphone is more practical is if your WiFi password is a complicated one with alphanumeric and special characters as trying to use the device buttons to select these characters will be time-consuming. Once this step is completed, your device is ready to for use.
When in operation, the 5-inch color screen display of the Node shows two faces, one each on the left and on the right. If the face is a green smiling face, it means that air quality is good but if the face is a red masked face, then it means that air quality is poor. If you wish for a more detailed analysis of the air quality, you can make the switch from facial indicators to a dial indicator. The dial indicator provides information on the degree of air pollution in parts per million.
The sensors monitor their respective air quality parameters and the measurements can be read from the device itself or from the companion smartphone app. There is also a historical chart which shows the readings that have been obtained during a specific time period. This historical chart can be calibrated to display hourly, daily, weekly or monthly readings, depending on the preference of the user.