Foobot Home Air Quality Monitor review A pricey way to keep an eye on indoor pollution

Foobot Home Air Quality Monitor review A pricey way to keep an eye on indoor pollution.
Contrary to what the name might indicate, Foobot is not a robot at all. On the contrary, it’s a hunk of white plastic that sits on the shelf and does only one thing: Monitor the air in your house for pollutants.A product that’s somewhat similar in design and function to the Netatmo Healthy Home Coach, the Foobot is an upright cylinder designed to be plugged in and left unattended. It does nothing on its own, but once you install Foobot’s app, you’re given a significant level of insight into your indoor air quality.

You’re probably used to various weather reports which assign a numerical value (and usually an easy-to-understand color) to the outdoor air quality, and Foobot works in much the same way. But rather than merely getting a single measurement of air quality, Foobot drills down into three different sub-components that define how healthy your air is.

First is volatile organic compounds (VOCs), “toxic chemicals that can be dangerous even at low concentrations and have short and long-term adverse health effects,” which namely means formaldehyde given off by home furnishings. Second is particulate matter, which includes dust, ash, aerosols, and other fumes that are not filtered before inhalation and which can cause various diseases when they build up in the body; Foobot detects particles with a mass of 0.003 to 2.5 micrograms. Finally, Foobot reports on carbon dioxide, though this is interpolated from its volatile compound measurement instead of being directly measured. Humidity and temperature are also recorded.

Link the Foobot to your smart thermostat, and it can trigger your ventilation system to circulate the air to improve its quality.