Amazon has introduced a new gadget to its online store, the Smart Air Quality Monitor. As the name suggests, this smart home gadget is designed to keep tabs on the quality of the air you’re breathing at home. It fulfils a very similar role to the latest-generation of Dyson Air Purifiers, which constantly monitor the number of allergens and particles in the air. But while the filters in the Dyson can remove these minuscule particles from the air around you, the Smart Air Quality Monitor is simply designed to monitor the levels of dust, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Although it can’t extract anything, it will immediately alert you when any of these reaches a problematic level – so you can open a window.
Although the Smart Air Quality Monitor is designed to be Alexa-enabled, it doesn’t include a far-field microphone array or speaker. So, you’ll need to pair the device with an Amazon Echo to unlock voice commands to use with this new smart home gadget. If you have an Echo Show, which includes a touchscreen display, you’ll be able to track long-term trends from inside your home.
Better yet, you can leverage the temperature sensor included inside the Smart Air Quality Monitor to trigger Alexa Routines. For those who don’t know, Alexa Routines allow you to daisy-chain a number of tasks together with a custom trigger phrase. For example, Alexa can switch off all of the lights in your house, read out any upcoming calendar appointments and weather reports for the following day and disable internet access via Amazon’s Eero router for younger members of the household when you say “Alexa, I’m going to bed now”.
By using the temperature sensor as the input, you can get Alexa to turn down smart thermostats and disable ceiling fans when the Smart Air Quality Monitor detects the room has risen above a certain temperature. This can all happen in the background, without any input from you.
Smart Air Quality Monitor is pretty affordable. At £69.99, it’s around half the cost of a similar Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor from Netatmo, which costs around £109.99. Google’s second-generation Nest Hub smart displays offer some data on outdoor air quality, including pollen count, but that feature is currently only available in the United States. And these smart displays cannot give you any insight into what’s happening inside your home.
Amazon’s Smart Air Quality Monitor is available to pre-order today, with the first units arriving from December 8, 2021.
www.express.co.uk
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