The AirGuard secondhand smoke detector is ready to narc
AirGuard senses cigarette and marijuana smoke -- and immediately alerts your disapproving landlord or dormitory RA.
New Hampshire-based company FreshAir Sensor was founded by Dartmouth Professor of Chemistry, Joe BelBruno. FreshAir Sensor's creation, benignly dubbed "AirGuard," could easily become the bane of a bunch of college-age kid's existence -- or really any occasionally-rule-breaking smoker living in a place with a strict no-smoking policy.
Supposedly, AirGuard is able to sense airborne concentrations of organic compounds found in cigarettes and marijuana smoke.
AirGuard comes in two forms -- as a two-plug adapter that fits over existing wall outlets, complete with tamper-resistant screws or as a palm-sized battery-powered device that looks a bit like the Nest Protect . The plug version, at least, seems like it would be very tough to flummox.
AirGuard units are designed to operate continuously and store data in real-time so your landlord, RA, hotel manager or other authority figure can check in on you 24/7. And if they don't happen to be staring at their screens just waiting for a violation to take place, they'll get a timestamped notification anyway.
The plug-in detector uses a Wi-Fi connection to send infraction information to a central monitoring system, which results in an email to the AirGuard admin. The hand-held device relies on Bluetooth and works in concert with an Android app.
There's no word yet on pricing for either of these products or when the plug-in detector will be available, but the wearable version is expected to make its debut in Spring 2015.