Sensemakers
Is it your dream to get air-quality readings wherever you are, from an accurate, speedy, and relatively inexpensive device? Does it help if it’s shaped like a pantyhose container? Well, if so, your dreams are about to come true with the Air Quality Egg, which blew through its $39,000 Kickstarter goal last year, raising more than $100,000.
This device measures NO2 and CO concentrations, the best indicators for air pollution levels, and shares its data with dozens or hundreds of other eggs to form a picture of air quality in your area. Plus, it looks cool! (Uh, probably. Pretty sure that thing up there is just a prototype.)
The device would have two components: one that you place outside your home to measure NO2 and CO concentrations, and the other egg-looking part that sits inside the house and tells you whether it’s safe to breathe in. The egg also uploads your hyper-local data to the internet, where it can combine with data from your neighbors’ eggs to form a real-time map of air quality.
There are plenty of air-quality readings floating around out there, but the appeal of the Air Quality Egg is that it can give an accurate reading right where you live or work, but also networks with other eggs so that users can get information on air quality all over the world. Why is the thing shaped like an egg? No fucking idea.
