Foobot – The Air Breathing Friend: Why You Need One in Your House

One such contractor having success with this is Don Ham of Refresh Smart Home. He and a group of friends started out as an inspections and testing firm, focused on helping homeowners optimize the quality of their indoor air. They have since transitioned to installing smart home products with its primary focus being on helping homeowners create smart and healthy homes.

Foobot – The Air Breathing Friend

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The quality of the air that we are breathing is a hot topic. Rarely does a day go past on the news without a story about "toxic" levels of pollutants in our cities and towns, and the harmful effects this has on our lives.

What does it test? This varies by device, but almost all of them test for particulate matter, chemical pollutants, and humidity. Some will track temperature, carbon monoxide, its less harmful friend carbon dioxide, and even formaldehyde levels.

Last week I decided to move my foobot in my bedroom mostly to check the air quality and humidity during night. I decided to place it in front of my bed between the window and the room door and on top of a chest of drawers that I have.

Several studies have shown that regular exposure to VOCs from cleaning products - particularly for cleaning staff - can aggravate or even cause asthma. To reduce VOC emissions in the home, choose cleaning products displaying the EU Ecolabel. These products are certified to adhere to a wide range of criteria - including limits on VOC content - ensuring that they are environmentally friendly.

Acoustic monitoring is another type of wearable devices that has been studied in asthma. Breathing sound measured by microphones over human skin can detect breathing patterns (respiratory rate, flow rate, tidal volume) and symptoms that may be due to asthma (wheeze, cough). Moreover, chest movement signals can be acquired using an accelerometer or belt-shaped device [24, 25]. Boner et al. measured the nocturnal wheeze in children with asthma using an acoustic respiratory monitor. They found that among children with apparently well-controlled asthma, 57% had considerable amounts of night wheezing that was unrelated to conventional measures of lung function [26]. The use of these continual wearable monitoring systems is still a developing field that needs further study on its clinical impact.

Tueo Health, which was acquired by Apple in 2019, developed a passive EMD to help parents monitor nighttime asthma symptoms in children. Using commercial breathing sensors placed under the mattress, the device can passively measure key physiologic parameters during sleep ( ). An asthma control score is then calculated from the physiologic data and available for the patient to view through a mobile app. The score gives direct indication of their asthma control status based on their provider-issued asthma action plan and recommends evidence-based steps to manage asthma. Such steps include reminders to avoid known triggers, refill a prescription, or make an appointment to see their healthcare provider. 2ff7e9595c