Air quality monitors make headway in smart home market

People tend to go about their day without knowing what's in the air around them and even those who are conscious of pollution might not realize that pollution indoors tends to be much worse outdoors. Now that sensors are ubiquitous and cheap, many products that keep consumers aware of air quality are thriving.

Among the notable new air quality-sensing devices in the market is Foobot. The product was originally designed to monitor air quality for users but it goes beyond that with an update that allows it to integrate into the modern smart home. Foobot can now be used with Nest and IFTTT products. Amazon's Alexa can also talk to Foobot, allowing users to ask Alexa for air quality readings and have the answer read back.

Since Foobot can monitor a number of things, including humidity, it can turn on a humidifier when humidity levels drop below a certain point. The company also recently teamed up with BreezoMeter to give users additional information about outdoor pollutants.

While being able to track pollutants like particulate matter is important, devices like Foobot could benefit in other ways. Foobot can detect volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide and dioxide, making it a useful gas detector as well.

Foobot's latest updates and smart home integration make it pretty sophisticated in the air quality sensor market, but it's actually part of a broader trend. Several products have popped up on Kickstarter and Indiegogo recently with similar functionality. Among those is Sensly, a home air quality monitor that pushes updates to users' smartphones. Another is Atmotube, a keychain-sized air quality sensor that allows users to monitor the quality around them wherever they go.

Air pollution has been a big news topic lately so it's perhaps not surprising the products like these have started cropping up. It's currently an underexploited part of the smart home, though. Awareness of air qualityis increasing now. Just as counting steps and monitoring heartbeat are becoming popular activities for the health conscious, monitoring air quality might start to become fairly common, especially in markets with known pollution problems like China.