When we think of air pollution our minds will conjure up images of backed up traffic, foggy skylines and chimneys coughing out great plumes of smoke, however recent research suggests there could in fact be more air pollution inside your home than outside. Think about it, cleaning products, air fresheners, candles, cooking fumes, skin/Hair products, pets, perfume even dust can affect the air quality. Flow from Plume Labs is a personal air pollution sensor, that can go wherever you go and measure the surrounding air quality, be that inside your home, out on the streets or inside your local shopping centre.
Plume Labs say that the air we breathe can vary dramatically from street to street, for those with health conditions this can have a serious knock on effect, however we should be aware of the hidden dangers that can lurk in the air we are exposed to. The Flow comes in the form of a lightweight unit (70g), it measures up at 4.9” (H) x 1.5” (W) x 1.3” (D), it has a polished steel body with a non-animal leather strap that can be used to attach the device to your belt, bag or pushchair. This unit is pretty straightforward, you press the indentation to wake up the Flow and the LED lights that surround this button will provide you with the results, green lights for low, yellow for moderate, red for high and purple for very high, blue will indicate it is setting up and white means it is loading.
It works by attempting to reproduce outside air conditions inside the device, the holes carved all around the body create a 360 degree Air Intake, this combined with the smallest fan technology available, guarantees optimal air circulation. The Flow comes with a companion app which can be used to give you a minute by minute breakdown of the pollutants you were exposed to throughout your day by measuring realtime concentrations of NO2, VOC, PM2.5 and PM10. By using the Flow regularly, you are also helping to build an air quality map by using your phone’s GPS, however you only get 24hours use per charge which is a shame. It is difficult to test the accuracy of the Flow as there is nothing to compare it too however, the results seemed to correlate to what we would expect, it flashed purple when we were cooking, orange in our living room, green outside in our garden and red out on our main road.
The app is basic, I feel there is potential to do more here, it will show you your current air quality as well as the history of previous days and provides you with generic advice. The first step to changing an issue is awareness and the Flow certainly opens your eyes to the quality of the air you are breathing, it is a simple and effective device that could help protect your health whilst drawing more attention to environmental issues. RRP £159
4 out of 5
Pros
Easy to use
LED light indication
Results in real time
Compact
Detects NO2, VOC, PM2.5 and PM10
Seems accurate
Cons
Short battery life
Basic app
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