Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor puts your breath in Alexa's hands
Just in case you felt that Amazon didn't have a hand in enough of your daily life, they've made an air quality monitor. The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor works with Alexa and tells you the contents of the air you breathe. This device will connect with all of your Amazon smart home products to enable an all-encompassing monitoring and voice-commanded environment for you and your family.
An interesting point Amazon makes here – they've been using Amazon employees to test this device. They've suggested that "as with any new device", they've been gathering feedback from Amazon employees throughout the development of the product. This is important because it isn't impartial 3rd-party participants that are giving Amazon feedback on this device before it's sold – it is people who already work for Amazon.
Those people suggest that the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor has allowed them to become "more mindful of the air quality in their home" and that this "improved their daily lives." These same testers suggested that the moves they made in response to the readings the air monitor delivered allowed them to breathe easier and "sleep better throughout the night."
If all is as positive as Amazon claims, this air quality monitor might be decent. It's suggested that the device can measure particulate matter in the room in which it is situated. Amazon says the device can detect dust, carbon monoxide, humidity, temperature, and "volatile organic compounds."
The device itself has no display, so you'll need to use another device with an Alexa app to see readouts. The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor will be sold on its own, but will need a companion device to work with voice controls or touchscreen controls.
The device itself has a single LED that appears green, yellow, or red depending on the overall air quality it detects. If the user has a device like Echo Show, the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor will show a list of air quality meters as well as an overall air quality score from 0 to 100.
This device has a single physical action button and is powered with micro-USB (not USB-C) with power cord included in the box. This device has an LED light indicator, an air vent, and has a physical size of 1.77-inches tall and 2.56 x 2.56-inches wide and deep.
The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor will be sold for a price of approximately $70 USD from Amazon. This device has a release date of December 8, 2021, and pre-orders start this week. The monitor on its own can be purchased for around $70, and Amazon will package devices like Echo Dot and Echo Show for those that wish to buy both for a price slightly lower than it'd be buying both devices on their own.