In the race to quantify everything—our bodies, our carbon footprint, the weather, the nutrients in our food— there’s one massive arena that we know next to nothing about, says Ales Spetic: the indoor environment.
His new product, the CubeSensor, is a simple and elegant-looking way to change that. The battery-powered device, when placed in different rooms of the house or office, "continuously measures light, noise, humidity, barometric pressure, air quality, temperature and vibrations," he says. The data is wirelessly sent to an internet connected-base station, which streams it to the cloud, allowing for smartphones to access the information and program alerts.
So why does it matter what’s going on inside your workspace or home? Spetic says that changes in air quality can impact the way we feel and act, and ultimately, our productivity at work. "We’ve all been at the meeting when we’ve started to feel sleepy, drowsy. It’s highly likely that it happened due to changes in temperature and air quality," he says. (Side note: his colleagues must make some spectacular Power Points if its the air to blame for boredom.)
Spetic adds: "Cubes can sense those changes, let you know when air quality in a room is starting to deteriorate, and alert you. The same goes for temperature. Changes of temperature by just couple of degrees affects our productivity," but CubeSensor could help office managers maintain a more stable environment.
He compares the expense—from about $90 to $125 per cube, depending on how many you buy—to the type of expenditures companies make on ergonomic chairs or other perks to increase productivity. The cubes are currently available for pre-order, with a $10 reservation fee.