AirVisual
Description & Analysis
AirVisual is a community seeking to bring education and awareness on global pollution problems that affect both our indoor and outdoor air. With the goal of helping citizens around the globe create healthier more productive environments, they developed a new smart air quality monitor called Node, which displays immediate, accurate air quality data to help create healthier, more productive environments.
Node delivers instant historical, real-time, and forecast air quality information, allowing everyone, everywhere to help contribute to a larger network. All that’s required is that you buy a Node on IndieGoGo and place it in either your house, so you can use it for personal health reasons, or outside by designating it as a public outdoor station. With the latter, being able to contribute the sensor’s info to the AirVisuals Global Air Pollution Network which in turn offers its collected data to all community members, helping track air pollution, sources, trends and movements around the world.
AirVisual Node also helps you make better decisions to optimize your health, by turning its gathered insights into suggested actions. Some example are: A high indoor CO2 reading, advising you to open your windows and let fresh air in, or a constant high indoor reading, advising you to clean your air filters, etc…
Currently, AirVisual combines the Node monitor with an app and a website to help engagement. The app helps you stay informed about your monitor’s readings through advice and other tools, while the website is the means used to see all the publicly designated Node data (AirVisuals Global Air Pollution Network). The monitor measures PM2.5, CO2, temperature and humidity for as long as the person wants to use the monitor, and then pools it together to offer indoor/outdoor data, forecasts, and advice.
The projects success could be measured by
(1) Looking into how many users are taking on new behaviors or lifestyle choices toward better pollution control in their lives after buying the device.
(2) Quantifying how many Node sensors have being designated as public and comparing it to the total amount of sensors that were sold.
(3) Qualifying how useful was the advices of the Node for the users everyday life.
(4) Quantifying and Qualifying data gathered from all sensors, so it can be used for other scientific purposes.
Some ways of scaling the Node and AirVisual project could possibly rely on connecting its network with other projects, like NASA’s Tempo readings as a way to double check accuracy as well as growing the AirVisuals Global Air Pollution Network. The AirVisual network then could start connecting air pollution measurements with other environmental problems caused by climate change.
Spectrometer
Pressures
AirVisual’s monitor Node came to life due to pressures involving: the environment, health, education, life quality and anthropogenic effects. Concerns that presented themselves primarily in the shape of health risks attributed to air pollution, and the lack of awareness of the impact they have had on both our health and life quality. Currently the project is awaiting completion of development before arriving to supporters of its IndieGoGO campaign. As the project enters the market it will be interesting to see how effective the monitor actually is in educating and enabling the user to make preferable day to day choices. As an intervention, AirVisual in turn seeks to create pressure on the average citizen around the globe, so they can not only modify their behavior and lifestyle choices but also affect government actions and policy making.
From data to decision-making
Currently users of the Node are engaging with the project through interactions with the screen of the sensor itself, as well as through interactions with the Node app. With the Node monitor they can track the air quality of their environment and compare it to the nearest outside Node, allowing them to see the difference between the air quality inside and outside. Users are also able to interact with the node though their day to day planning by using the foreseeing mode of the Node, which works similar to weather forecasts, allowing them to take different actions depending on the readings of the device and the “Nodes’ quick fix tips”. Other forms of interactions with the project include alerts that show up on the users phone, health recommendations and air pollution community news and medical findings, all available in the Node app.
As for information that the user would enter into the Node, there currently isn’t a way for this to happen. The data is collected without a direct user interaction, where even if the user isn’t using the device to alter it’s lifestyle, if the device is left on, it will continue to gather data and send it to AirVisual. This is both the positive and the negative part of the Node, on one side the Node can gather data, even if the user isn’t so involved in it, but because of this it is easy for the user to forget about the device and ultimately not use it in their day to day life. Given the fact that the goal for Air Visual is for users to make changes in their life in response to the device’s info, this part may be left in question if it will actually happen or not. A problem that becomes more evident when taking into account the outdoor designated devices. If once these devices are set outside, there is no visual contact with them, will the app be able to hold enough interest for the user, so that they may in turn continue interacting with it and altering his or her behavior?
