uHoo air monitor creator announces seed funding round

The startup behind uHoo, a device that monitors air pollution levels inside your home, today announced a seed round of funding from East Ventures (Disclosure: East Ventures is also an investor in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page for details). The amount of the round is undisclosed at this time.

uHoo’s product is equipped with sensors that measure things like temperature, particulate matter (such as dust or smoke), airborne chemicals, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. Through an accompanying mobile app, it talks to your smartphone and notifies you when the air in your house or your office is getting a little too crowded with harmful elements. The app allows for the long-term gathering of data on the air quality of your home or work environment and helps you identify trends such as increases in humidity or the presence of worrying chemicals like unsafe paint.

This can help people suffering from conditions like asthma and rhinitis or families with young children to monitor the air quality in their homes and act accordingly. “We are looking at moving the concept of healthcare, of taking care of yourself, from treatment to prevention,” Dustin Jefferson Onghanseng, uHoo co-founder and CEO, tells Tech in Asia. “Our health, especially children’s health, is of the utmost importance and having the capability to prevent ailments has significant value.”

With its supply chain established, the company says the next steps are to obtain local and international product certifications so as to comply with local and international regulations, and to guarantee the safety of its product, before commencing production.

uHoo the product is expected to launch in Q4 2015. uHoo the company is currently at work establishing partnerships and distribution deals for the device. “We are speaking with a number of distributors in Asia and Europe and there has been significant interest in our product,” Onghanseng says.

Onghanseng believes the device’s use could eventually be enhanced in terms of being able to communicate with more devices in the future. “uHoo is an internet of things company and we empower people with the ability to track and monitor the condition of their homes or offices anytime and anywhere,” he says. “We understand that it is also important for people to be able to control the condition of their [spaces] when they are away. This opens up opportunities for various devices in the market to be connected to our platform and allow the creation of a smart home or office.”

uHoo appeared at Startup Asia Jakarta in November last year, where it was the second runner-up in the Startup Arena. Since then, the company has upgraded uHoo’s hardware and software, and will be showing the product live at Tech in Asia Singapore 2015 later this week.