Better Decisions Through Data.
Some ‘ventilation hoods’ are actually air purifiers in disguise
In addition to very much wanting our app to be able to control kitchen ventilation hoods (e.g., after you run a dishwasher, a major source of indoor air pollution currently ignored in most households), it’s worth noting here that some ventilation hoods are configured to recirculate air (rather than exhaust) and may feature a charcoal filter (and thus the so-called ‘vent hood’ is actually a not-very-good air purifier. See our earlier article reviewing air purifiers that actually work.) Vent hoods are also integrated into many over-the-range microwave ovens (where they may exhaust to the outside or may simply be a weak air purifier). Weak air purifier or not, Chinese-only product labels or not, we’re happy some company is finally thinking that it is time to incorporate these dust sensors into more products to simultaneously improve air quality and save energy.
Arthur C. Clarke predicted all of this back in the 1960s. (Well, except for the Internet of Things part.)
In the house of the future, your ventilation hoods and air purifiers will be integrated into a smart home automation system that will be aware of airborne dust levels, status of windows & doors via the security system, and use of polluting appliances like dishwashers and gas ranges. That smart house, which automatically filters out air pollutants, was predicted by Arthur C. Clarke in a newspaper article after a visit to the world’s fair back in the 1960s (minus the Internet-connectivity thingy). It is not yet here, but with the advent of these new inexpensive sensors, dust monitoring Internet apps like ours, and the Internet of Things, it soon will be.
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[…] We’re apparently a little ahead bit of the pack on this, as most exhibitors in this space weren’t quite thinking along these lines yet. (There were “smart vent hoods” that might, or might not, incorporate a dust sensor. These allow restaurants to save energy, and we might do a future post on them [updated: link].) […]