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Update: PocketLab Air - Measure What's in Your Air

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Submitted by PocketLab on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 16:25

What is PocketLab Air?


PocketLab Air is an all-in-one science lab for investigating climate change and air pollution in your environment. With PocketLab Air you can measure carbon dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and weather conditions. You can investigate how air quality is affected by soot, dust, smoke and other fine particles from vehicles, wildfires, factories, and other sources. PocketLab Air can compute the Air Quality Index (AQI) score by measuring particles sizes of 1 um, 2.5 um, and 10 um. PocketLab Air is currently available on our store web page as a pre-order. You can also visit our original Kickstarter campaign for additional information on PocketLab Air here and view our original Kickstarter campaign video below. 

 

PocketLab Air Manufacturing Update

We've been very busy with engineering and manufacturing related to PocketLab Air and our other science products, and we now have a lot of exciting news to share. 

Hardware Design

We have completed the major tasks of the PocketLab Air hardware design including component selection, schematic design, and board layout. We are preparing to do a prototype manufacturing build in the next few weeks. We use local manufacturing partners in California to help ensure high quality and high reliability of our sensor hardware. 

PocketLab Air hardware schematic
PocketLab Air Hardware Schematic

Once we have the prototype circuit boards assembled, we will begin our qualification testing of the overall design and the specific sensors for carbon dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter. We are re-using the Bluetooth hardware inside the PocketLab Voyager and PocketLab Weather sensors to speed up the development and testing process.

PocketLab Air circuit board
PocketLab Air circuit board

 

App Design

We have finished a new prototype version of our web-based application. The new application adds mapping, visualization, and data processing features that will be essential for using PocketLab Air. In the screenshots below, you can seea visualization of weather data from the PocketLab sensor and mapping of public weather station data in nearby San Francisco Bay Area locations. 

New user interface
New user interface with mapping features. The app will access openly available air quality data to compare to PocketLab Air measurements.

 

Timeline

We will have a good estimate of our manufacturing timeline and our delivery schedule once we get the prototype hardware back from our manufacturer. So far, we still expect to meet our delivery estimate of October.

Educational Impact

PocketLab is excited to announce that we have received an SBIR Phase II grant from the Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences! You can read more about it here. PocketLab Air will be part of our ongoing research about how to engage students in more real-world science applications. Thank you so much for supporting our Kickstarter campaign which helped us pursue and win the grant award!

If you have any questions or concerns please email us at [email protected]

-The PocketLab Team

PocketLab Air

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