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Sensors/IoT Smart Home

Aria detects radon and IAQ, reports it to your smartphone

Pollution is a big problem, but it’s not one that’s limited only to big cities or industrialized areas. The truth is that indoor air quality, or lack thereof, is the cause of thousands of deaths each year, whether it’s carbon monoxide or the harder to detect and deadlier radon.

Aria is a home air quality monitor that can detect radon and other pollutants and report on air quality in real time, giving homeowners plenty of time to react and protect themselves from harmful gases. Aside from the colorful light indicating air quality on the device’s exterior, Aria can also push notifications using a Wi-Fi network to owners’ phones, alerting them of an issue with the air at home even from a distance.

While Aria’s light functions with some basic indicators (green means good, red means bad), more detailed information is uploaded at all times to the app, letting users know when to ventilate or call for outside help if necessary. Aria breaks this information down hour by hour, giving a detailed report of when pollutants are entering the home. Aria developer RSens is asking for $95,000 to offset manufacturing costs. The device itself costs $99 for early supporters and is expected to launch September 2015.

It’s hard to be overly cautious when dealing with something that could be potentially life-threatening and hazardous to an entire family. That being said, asking a device to provide hourly breakdowns of air quality on demand seems a little hypochondriac. It’s nice that the device offers this level of performance, but many users might not need to be so plugged in to what the air is like at home at all times. Either way, there’s some peace of mind to be gained in knowing Aria is looking out.