Blueair Sense+: A connected air purifier for homes

We don’t usually think much about the air around us. We breathe in, breathe out, and life goes on. But the numbers tell a different story. An average adult inhales and exhales about 7 litres of air per minute, which totals up to about 11,000 litres of air every single day. And given the air pollution outdoors in most cities, it is important to take measures to breathe clean air at least for the 12-14 hours you may be inside your home. Another largely neglected aspect is that indoor air actually may have a lot more chemicals, from cleaning fluids, building materials, pet dander, rugs and carpets, as well as cooking, and all this can cause health problems over time. This has made indoor air purifiers ever so relevant.

Swedish company Blueair has added two new products to its line-up in India. One is an air purifier called the Sense+, a one of its kind Internet of Things (IoT) device in its genre. Another is an air monitor, called Aware. We run you through some of the highlights of the two instruments.

Blueair Aware

The Sense+ is designed for a room size ideally around 200 sq. ft, which should be enough for most modern-day apartments. It works on the HEPASilentPlus filtration technology to clean air up to 30% faster than its predecessor, the Sense. And just like the Sense, the Sense+ can be controlled by hand gestures. The design is also similar, with high quality metal body, and it is available in a range of colours.

The Aware is an indoor air-quality monitor, which detects airborne particle content, carbon dioxide as well as other volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and gives a colour-coded notification—orange means the air quality is bad and blue indicates it is good.

Blueair Friend app

Both the Sense+ and Aware have Wi-Fi capabilities, which means you can connect them on the home network with the Blueair Friend app (free; Google Play Store and Apple App Store). This allows the user to keep tabs on the indoor air quality, as well as get guidance on the quality of outdoor air at their location. The app collects data from multiple agencies in each city around the world and puts all that in a cloud which your app and subsequently the Sense+ and Aware latch on to. Based on the usage and the air conditions in your city, Blueair can also recommend when it may be time to change the internal air filters in the purifier. Apart from the cloud-based info, the Blueair Friend app also allows complete control of the functions of the Sense+ purifier—fan speed, sleep mode, brightness of the LEDs and child mode, among others.

However, we aren’t entirely sure if you really need the Aware air monitor to complement your current air purifier, because it is most likely already giving you an indication of the current air quality. Also, the Aware plugs into the same cloud-based app that the Sense+ uses, and you don’t really get any extra information by using both devices.

The Sense+ is priced at ₹ 45,000, and the Aware air monitor at ₹ 20,000.