Awair, the creators of products that track air quality in homes, a couple years ago shrewdly recognized a demand for air quality tracking outside the home.
While residential spaces are where we touch down at the end of the day, and where our families spend time during the day and on the weekends, we travel through many more spaces throughout each week.
Transportation routes and vessels, schools, offices, fitness facilities, grocery stores and other retail spaces…what do we know about the air our bodies are cycling through when we occupy these spaces?
Air quality within a space can be overlooked for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is that air is invisible. In the design process and facility management functions, air quality advocates must work harder to draw attention to something we can’t technically see.
Awairis a company bringing air quality transparency to the built environment. Awair creates products for those who want more knowledge and control over the quality of the air in their living and work environments, for increased safety, performance and wellbeing.
The company’s mission is to “empower you with the knowledge, motivation and confidence to thrive in your environment.” Awair was founded in 2013 by Ronald Ro, CEO, and Kevin Cho, CTO, and is located in San Francisco, California.
“Air quality is a growing concern for businesses as pressure mounts to conform to WELL, LEED, and RESET building health standards,” notes Awair’s website. “Indoor air quality, which can be 5x more polluted than outdoor air quality, has been linked to the occurrence of allergies, headaches, inability to focus, and much more. Research from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health indicates that by improving air quality, businesses can not only see increases in productivity, but revenue as well by up to $15,500 per employee annually…In a study of a WELL Certified office buildings, wellness is the next trillion-dollar industry and Air Health and Safety has the most impact towards being a WELL Certified building.”
Awair’s website quotes research from the EPA regarding air quality in schools: “Over 90% of all K-12 schools are located within one mile of highways, exposing 4.4 million children to elevated levels of pollution. Studies show poor air quality in schools can lead to: increased absences and the transmission of infectious diseases, decreased overall health and productivity of teachers, and lower test scores and student performance (~15%)
Awair initially got its start with products designed for residential environments, but in 2017 it launched Omni, designed specifically for business.
“Awair developed Omni following a demand from businesses looking to extend the capabilities of Awair’s in-home air quality monitors to their facilities,” reads Awair’s website. “Omni was designed with a more industrial aesthetic, borrowing from the award-winning designs of the original Awair and Glow and has been outfitted for increased accuracy, durability, and reliability. Omni features a touch-sensitive LED display, can be mounted on a wall or stand, and includes a battery back-up to prevent loss of data.”
Omni can be used in offices, facilities, schools, hotels, hospitals and many other commercial or institutional environments. The tech linking all of the units together, coupled with an easy-to-use mobile app and a simple dashboard provides actionable insights that enable businesses to take control of the air quality in their spaces, creating healthier, more productive environments for employees, customers and other occupants. Business leaders can access trends and advanced analytics regarding their space at any time.
“Omni’s business dashboard allows for the management of hundreds to thousands of individual Omnis in a facility,” notes Awair’s website. “The dashboard provides analytics of both the building’s overall air quality as well as individual rooms’. Data history can be easily accessed and exported, which is especially helpful for building owners aspiring to achieve LEED, WELL, or RESET certification. Customized alerts and notifications can also be set-up for when building conditions fall out of the desired air quality range.”
The company’s operating system software allows things like: real-time displays of office air quality for employees; building automation systems (BAS) integrations; room-by-room building management visualization, seamless connection to IOT devices and solutions; the ability to import external data for enhanced analysis; automating messages to clients and customers; auto-populated reports, and more.
Omni was first piloted by a number of flagship companies, including AirBnb, Google, Stanford University, Levi’s, and many coworking spaces across the world. Some of its notable features include:
>Enterprise-grade sensors that track the key factors of air quality: Temperature, Humidity, CO2, Chemicals, and Fine Dust
>Intuitive business dashboard that can manage hundreds to thousands of units and deliver notifications, alerts, and analytics on air quality
>Touch-sensitive LED display
>Battery reserve in case of power loss
>Wall mountable or stand
>2-minute setup
Awair is part of a new band of companies and products that are empowering people to demand healthier spaces that work hard and smart, by prioritizing knowledge and transparency. This field of products will continue to grow, becoming savvier to client’s needs, and those working in architecture, interior design, and facility management must continue to learn about and work with them.