The San Francisco company Awair is one of the best-funded developers in the smart home market, so it makes sense that the company’s latest product is the product of some very smart ideas centered on smart home principles, design, and function.
The Glow C that hits the market on Wednesday, July 24, is the latest iteration in Awair’s line of popular air quality monitors, but the company has built in a lot more functionality this time around, enabling the device to function as a smart plug, a motion sensor, or simply a really cool customizeable night light. Let’s hit the high notes one by one.
First: Air quality. Awair’s air quality monitors are some of the most sophisticated available on the market, so you can trust its prime functionality for sure. The new Glow C tracks three key factors that influence the quality of the air we breathe.
These factors include a wide range of chemicals know in the trade as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which originate from all sorts of sources including burning fuel but can also be given off by simple household items like paints, copy machines, printers, and, counterintuitively, air fresheners, among other consumer products. In the short term, they can cause irritation of the eyes and lungs, headaches, and dizziness, while long-term exposure to VOCs can cause organ damage and cancer. Naturally, we want as few of them polluting the air as possible.
The Glow C also monitors temperature and humidity, two factors that come into play when we find out that the device can also act as a smart plug, enabling it to control non-smart devices automatically. For example, if the Glow C detects that the temperature of your home is too high, it can automatically turn on a fan that is plugged into it. Conversely, if the Glow C detects the humidity of your home is too low, it can turn on an attached humidifier.
Awair’s mobile app can generate a color-coded and numeric Awair Score, ranging from 0 to 100. The app also uses machine learning technology to lear from the user’s habits and lifestyle preferences and make recommendations based on what it learns is most important to its owner.
But wait, there’s more. Airwair’s latest and greatest gizmo also has a built-in motion sensor that can be programmed not only to illuminate the device with its built-in lights, but also to alert the user through push notifications or simply trigger when movement is detected in the place.
Finally, users can also change the LED color of their device. In its most basic settings, the LED light shows green when the air quality is good, yellow when it’s fair, and red when things aren’t cool, but Awair says that users will also have the ability to customize their light settings to align with their preferences and preferred color palatte.
The Awair Glow C is now available at getawair.com for a launch price of $80. Breathe easy, everybody.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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