I had the opportunity of getting the Nosk Nasal Filters and of course I couldn’t resist not writing a review about my personal thoughts and impressions.

As I have already mentioned in my preview article effectiveness and elegance are the key points of my evaluation.

Characteristics

It has been certified efficient at 100% for PM10 filtration, 96.3% for PM2.5 filtration and 96.1% for PM1.0 filtration. Each filter last up to 100 hours, it is made of SMS fabric (Spunbond/Meltblown/Spunbond) and the clip is made of Polyolefin Elastomers which is hipoalergic.

Elegance

Yes it is elegant, you can wear it without people noticing it thanks to its discreet invisible design. It doesn’t produce heat or moist like a face mask, so it doesn’t make you sweat either. You can speak, eat or drink freely. Each time I use it I sneeze once or twice because it tickles my nasal hair but this is a normal reaction of the body.

Effectiveness

In my case it didn’t shield both nasal cavities well. It comes in one size only so it couldn’t fit well enough to shield the left or the right nasal cavity at the same time correctly, so pollutants could bypass the filter and enter in my respiratory system. Then as I had more filters available I shared them with some friends just to try and see if the filter could adjust on their nasal cavities better. Indeed the filters fit most of them perfectly. I would surely recommend this kind of filtration for pollen, dust and mold. As a result people who work in construction sites and need protection from dust mostly PM10 and then PM2.5 or people allergic to pollen during Spring time they will likely benefit from the Nasal Filter.

 

Conclusions

All in all it is an innovative product which will allow you to interact with your daily tasks without any problem and it will protect you from basic air pollutants. The company needs to come up with more sizes but you should give it a try as it is available in different packages of 2 or 6 or 10 or 20 filter plugs (More info at https://filtrosnosk.com). In case you purchase this kind of filtration remember to handle it always with clean hands and store it in its case because you don’t want germs in your nasal cavities.

Cyclists, motorcyclist and pedestrians but even people inside their houses (depending where they live) get exposed to direct air pollutants like Hydrocarbons (HC), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Particulate matter (PM1.0-PM2.5-PM10), Carbon monoxide (CO) and Sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the vehicles’exhaust fumes everyday.

The solutions can be limited. A half face filter mask for example is the only solution for those that move around the city. Two are the factors that will determinate if the mask is worth using it. Firstly if it is efficient enough to block all the harmful pollutants out of our lungs and secondly if it is elegant enough to use it in public.

Right now there are many masks in the market that offer these kinds of protection, for now I will list some on them below but later this year I will review some of them here on #seetheair blog and I will let you know if they are efficient and elegant for your everyday usage.

List:

• Respro Pollution Maks Link
• Airinum Mask Link
• 3M Respirators Link
• O2 Canada Mask Link
• Nosk Nasal Filters Link Spain – Link UK
• Totobobo Mask Link
• Vogmask Link
• Cambridge Masks Link
• RZ Mask Link

In case there is someone who would like a review on a specific pollution mask please let me know below on the comments. Thank you

Our lives dependent upon our breath but many people including myself don’t know how to breathe properly.

• Clean fresh air is an important key for a better breath. There are hundreds of studies about the importance of fresh clean air. In cities with high air pollution, people struggle with asthma, infections and breathing difficulties and they are quite common issues. We need clean air for our health.
• Be aware of each breath, which mean to breathe into your abdomen using deep, rhythmic belly breaths. Many people including myself are surface breathers, meaning that our inhalation of air is shallow and it isn’t even noticeable, as a result not efficient. Deep belly breathing calms the central nervous system right away. The breaths help in establishing the connection of our mind to our body.
• Focus on your breath. Breathe in and breathe out. Notice your belly filling with fresh air, and exhale. Stay present. Knowingly sending the breath deep into your belly then fill up the lungs. Feel the air inside you. Experience the exchange of gases (O2-CO2) inside you, and witness the calming down of the body. That’s it, you did it. Now remember this steps each time you catch yourself breathing shallow and of course practice.

There are some apps for smartphones and smartwatches that can help and remind you to breathe properly. For example, Apple watchOS 3.0 includes an app with breathing techniques. Available Fall 2016 for free

Search for a “breathe or meditation” app on iOS or Android store. You can find free and paid ones like:

Stop, Breathe & Think  |  Breath  |  Headspace  |  Calm

Clean Clean Clean!

Steps

1. Clean your apartment’s floors and the furnitures twice a week.
2. Clean the pre-filters from your Air Conditioners or your purifiers every one-two months.
3. Clean or refresh your linens once a week.

Guide

1. Vacuum. Pollutants can accumulate in the house. By using a vacuum with a HEPA filter you can reduce concentrations of lead, dust and dust mites in your house. Mop. Mopping picks up the dust that vacuuming leaves behind. Avoid soap and other chemicals and just use water and a blend of essential oils like Tea Tree, Lemon and Pine, trust me it works! (Don’t over mopping due to excess humidity). Dust. Remove dust from the furnitures with a mixture of water and few drops of an essential oil blend (Lemon-Lavander) inside a bottle spray and with the help of a rag. No shoes. Put a floor mat at every door. People track in all sorts of chemicals via the dirt on their shoes. Finally ask your family members to walk around the house without shoes.
2. Clean the pre-filters inside your shower cabin with the shower telephone and then mix in a bowl 3 cups of warm water, 1 tsp of baking soda and 4 drops of tea tree essential oils and scrub gently the filters to disinfect them and give them a fresh scent.
3. Your linens can accumulate a big amount of dust, so remember to clean them by washing or by hanging them outside in the sun for a few hours or by vacuuming them in case there isn’t available any of the options above like sofas, armchairs, etc.

This summer I decided to design and hopefully build a DIY Air purifier. I came up with three designs and I need your vote to help me choose one of the three.

1. Maybe one of the simplest DIY purifier equipped with a fan, a HEPA / activated carbon filter.
2. This one allowes more aire to flow from the bottom to the top thanks to its cone shape again with a HEPA / activated carbon filter but it takes more space.
3. A wooden purifier, equipped with two smaller fans and a HEPA / activated carbon filter.

Vote by leaving a comment bellow. In case you have any suggestions I would love to read about them as well.

It has been quite some time now since I have had 2 devices with VOC sensors and I want to express my honest opinion about them. I am not going to talk about the brands but only I will discuss my opinion if the VOC sensor have a value to the user.

One of devices displays the measurments in ppb and the other one displays an index value from 1 to 5. At the beginning I was thinking that ppb is a better way to display pollution inside the house “more accurate” but after a while I understood that it doesn’t matter because index values are a greater and easier way for the avarage users to understand that.

VOC sensors measure a variety of harmful chemical compounds with carbon atoms (aka organic) like Acetone CH3(CO)CH3, Benzene C6H6, Ethylene glycol C2H6O, Formaldehyde CH2O, Toluene C7H8,Xylene C8H10, etc… but also other non harmful VOCs as well, for instant when I clean my house I use distilled water and organic essential oil, tea tree to be more exact. Tea tree’s components are Terpinen-4-ol C10H18O, γ-Terpinene C10H16, Aromadendrene  C15H24 etc… all with Carbon atoms which they trigger the VOC sensor. As you can understand if you don’t have the chemical knowledge for each particle in the air, you might get confused by the alerts your VOC sensor gives you.

Many users have told me that they indeed feel confused by the readings the VOC sensor gives them. The researchers on the other hand say that at least you know the concentration of some organic gas is higher than normal, and you can start thinking about why that occurs.

I am not in favor of researchers’ opinion, the user has to know excaly what isn’t going well with his air quality and not guessing.

Interesting DIY projects for Weather-Air devices. Sure there are many Brand devices out there that measure air pollution or weather conditions but prices can get high, so if you have the skills to solder then you can design a device for your own needs. There are a lot of DIY projects out there, so choose the best for you and your wallet.

1.   Easy IoT weather station with multiple sensors by Ingenerare

http://www.instructables.com/id/Esay-IoT-Weather-Station-With-Multiple-Sensors/?ALLSTEPS

Estimated cost of the project around 15$

2.    Air Pollution Detector by ESC2018

http://www.instructables.com/id/Air-Pollution-Detector/?ALLSTEPS

Estimated cost of the project ∼80$ with many gas sensors

 

3.   Air Pollution and Environmental Monitor by EricT93

http://www.instructables.com/id/Air-Pollution-and-Environmental-Monitor/?ALLSTEPS

 

 

4.   How To Smell Pollutants by liseman

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Smell-Pollutants/?ALLSTEPS

 

5.   Build Your Own Particle Sensor

https://www3.epa.gov/airnow/teachers/gh_pmsensorkit_handoutandinstructions.pdf

 

6.   DIY your own air quality monitor with Arduino

http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=DFblog/blog&id=88

 

7.   Air Quality Test Box by Seeed Studio

http://www.instructables.com/id/Air-Quality-Test-Box/

 

 

If you have problem with Mold in your house the video below will help you understand it better and clean it up. They couldn’t explain it better.

Mold In Your Home Video by Northwest Clean Air Agency

Air Purifiers that use various ideas and technologies to clean the air from VOCs to PMs. As you can see on the green column I have mentioned the best and the cheapest way to improve air quality indoors, it’s a reminder for those that can apply this principle.

• Prices may vary during time.
• Some Companies don’t specify on their datasheets some of the infos.
• There are hundreds of air purifiers out there I have just included some of them, if you want to suggest another one please feel free to mention it on a comment below and I will be happy to add it.
• The classification of the design is based on my personal criteria, what’s aesthetically nice or not.

A #seetheair reader has purchased a Foobot and a Netatmo units and he was kind enough to answer some of my questions and help me write this comparison post between these two devices. Something adictional that I want to meantion is that he used to have an AirMentor device too but he had to return it because of the wifi-internet lack.

 

Q1) Which one do you think is more accurate? On VOCs, PMs, CO2, Temperature and Humidity. 

A1) I have the feeling Netatmo is better on CO2 readings it had the same values as AirMentor as I said if AirMentor would give the ability to check it from the web and had a IFTTT channel I would have kept it, but the levels of PMs and VOCs were more or less the same between AirMentor and Foobot. Netatmo shows always an higher RH% than the others. I also have Wirelesstag tags and they show the same RH% as Airmentor and Foobot, so I guess Netatmo is wrong. (All companies have tested their devices inside chambers but still they fail to have accurate readings because the sensors either aren’t good enough or they don’t calibrate propertly especialy the PM sensors. I read and see that many consumers struggle with that, they just don’t know what to believe.)

Q2) Have you ever had connectivity issues with any of the devices?

A2) Sometimes Foobot shows a message, but are simple glitches that do not really create a problem. (I want to mention here that I have never had connetion problem with Foobot and my Home Wifi router but yes with my parents router, but even other devices like iPhone, Android or Windows Laptop have had problems with my parents’ router, so maybe you need to check the router as well.)

Q3) Which device has friendlier user interface and which has better data representation?

A3) I would say Netatmo has a better user interface…, but there are also differences between iPhone and Android for Foobot and the iPhone version is a bit better, but probably this is personal taste. (Indeed Foobot has a bit better interface on iOS than Android.  Also Netamto offers weather forecast in the app.)

Q4) Is there anything you would like to change on both devices?

A4) Netatmo could improve the humidity sensor nothing more, on the other hand Foobot could split the PMs and add an action in IFTTT to send a notification when air pollution is lower than x value, this would help in managing the air purifier. I guess Foobot could improve the way they calculate CO2 but at the end I still have a bit the feeling that I don’t know where the truth is and maybe only with a professional device we will know this. (As I wrote before, companies have to join somehow forces and standarize their results, maybe they need to apply EU or USA Air Quality Standards or come up with new ones, but common ones.)

 

I would like to thank Angelo @ilprofessoredi for helping me writting this post and for the time he has spent answering my questions and taking photos and screenshots of the apps.

You can also read my previous comparison article “Foobot vs Awair“ here.