Atmotube tells you if the air you’re breathing is toxic
Like you, I assume that the environment I am sitting in right now is pretty safe. I mean, I don’t see anything dangerous, feel uncomfortable, or smell anything that I should be worried about. Yet I may be filling my lungs with harmful elements that my cognitive sensory abilities are incapable of noticing.
To detect the level of harmful elements in the air, I’d typically need a machine with a fairly large footprint, which isn’t the most convenient thing to carry around. To solve this, Vera Kozyr and Igor Mikhnenko, cofounders of design firm NotAnotherOne, have developed the Atmotube: a small, personal air quality detector that can fit in the palm of your hand and links to an app on your mobile phone (iOS and Android).
Although NotAnotherOne has a lot of experience designing consumer products for high-end clientele, this is the company’s first original product. It launched an Indiegogo campaign last week for the Atmotube, aiming to reach $52,000, and is currently at roughly 35 percent of that goal. If the target is successfully met, NotAnotherOne is looking to ship units out in March of 2016.
The Atmotube is about the size of a mini-LED flashlight and can be hooked to a key chain and then attached to a bag or belt loop. The exterior tube is built out of titanium, and will come in five different colors (black, metallic, copper, gold, and white).
The interior sensor detects the levels of volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, which can be read via the mobile app. “It detects over 127 different compounds in that group,” said Kozyr, “measured all together, and it shows you the concentration of particles per million of all volatile organic compounds.”
内部センサーが揮発性有機化合物、二酸化炭素、そして一酸化炭素のレベルを検出するが、モバイルアプリを介してそれらの値を読み取ることができる。「センサーが集合体の中にある127を超える化合物を検出します。すべてを一緒に測定した後、揮発性有機化合物の百万あたりの粒子濃度を表示します。」とKozyr氏は述べた。
内部のセンサーは揮発性有機気体や二酸化炭素、一酸化炭素の濃度を測定し、スマートフォンのアプリを使って測定値を見ることができる。「当製品は127種もの有機気体を察知することができます。これらをまとめて測定することによって、揮発性有機気体全体に含まれる目的粒子のppm濃度がわかるのです。」とKozyr氏は言う。
There is also a color-changing LED, which goes from blue for excellent levels to red for extremely bad, and will give users a way to quickly check the air quality without pulling out their phone. It can also detect humidity and temperature.
The app will take advantage of crowdsourcing data from other units, and share the reports on a global map. So if I live in an area with a ton of Atmotubes in use, I can gain air quality reports for a specific region before passing through it myself. This will also, hopefully, provide a more direct visual of just how polluted our local environment actually is.
同アプリは、他のユニットからのクラウドソーシング・データを活用し、地球規模でその報告結果を共有するようになるだろう。そのため、Atmotubeがあまり利用されていない地域に住んでいても、自分の前を通り過ぎる前に、特定地域での空気品質報告を入手できる。また、うまくいけば、自分がいる場所の環境がどの程度汚染されているのかを、もっと直接的に視認できるようになるだろう。
“It’s meant to be something to make people aware and change their behavior.” explained Mikhnenko, “Sort of like the Fitbit, but with air pollution. Before the Fitbit, people didn’t really care about how much they walked, but now that’s changed.”
So how bad can air pollution be? In parts of the world like Moscow and Beijing, worse than residents may think.
Mikhnenko recalled a recent trip to China, “It was interesting, because we were touring factories in China three months ago, and we were running the demo for [the Atmotube] to this one group. And the air quality inside the room was pretty bad. So they were like, ‘Ok! Let me open the window.’ And the air quality immediately dropped! So it was like … ‘OK … Let me just close this back up.'”
Things aren’t necessarily that much better in the U.S. Especially inside cars. “In cars it is interesting,” said Kozyr: “We find that when we’re in traffic, and we have the windows open, the air quality goes down! When you close the windows and turn on the air conditioning, it slightly goes up.”
アメリカ国内の状況――特に車内においては――が中国と比べて特に優れているかというとそうでもないようだ。「車内の状況は面白いです。交通量のあるところで窓を開けると車内の空気の質が急に落ちるのです！そして窓を閉めてエアコンをつけると空気の質がわずかに向上するのです。」とKozyr氏は述べた。
アメリカほどいい必要はない。特に車の車内は「面白い」とKozy氏は述べた。「私たちが渋滞にいる時に窓を開けると大気状況は低下するんだ!窓を閉めてエアコンをつけると少しよくなるんだ」
And access to this kind of real-time data has made a significant change in how Mikhnenko lives his life, “Now, with this thing, I’ve changed my behavior a lot. I open the windows in my apartment much more often. I close the windows in my car. I actually stopped biking in the city because it was unhealthier than just sitting in the car … although you wind up with other health problems sitting for long periods of time, but still.”
“And I got annoyed,” Mikhnenko explained, “because this [Atmotube] got me thinking about how, right now, these cars outside are slowly killing us. Because they emit carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. And these elements are deadly, and no one cares.”
「あとイライラする」とMikhnenko氏は説明した、「なぜならこのAtmotubeは現在外にある車たちが二酸化炭素と一酸化炭素を排出してどれくらい少しずつ私たちを殺しているかと考えさせられる。これらの成分は致命的でそして誰も気にしない」
「そして、怒りを感じることがあります。Atmotubeのお蔭で、今まさに外を走っている車が我々の寿命をじりじりと縮めているということがわかったからです。車は二酸化炭素と一酸化炭素を排出し、それらの気体は有害ですが誰も気にも留めないのです。」とMikhnenkoは言った。
