Indoor air monitor startup is back on Indiegogo to fuel preorders

Photo credit: uHoo.

Indoor air quality monitor uHoo is up for preordering on Indiegogo, the company announced today. The startup based in Hong Kong and Singapore has been offering preorders for its inaugural product for a while now, but decided to turn to crowdfunding for a second time to build up momentum and get the word out.

The team has got the hardware locked down and is ready to go into production.

“When we did our first [crowdfunding] campaign in November 2014, we had an idea and a prototype, but we didn’t do any marketing,” CEO and co-founder Dustin Jefferson Onghanseng tells Tech in Asia. The campaign, aiming for US$30,000, only managed to bring in US$12,000 from around 80 backers.

That wasn’t the end, though. The startup persevered and secured a seed round from venture capital firm East Ventures in May 2015. In the six months between the campaign and the seed funding, the startup was able to continue developing the product, getting to a second and a third prototype.

(Disclosure: East Ventures is also an investor in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page for details.)

Now it’s got the hardware locked down and is ready to go into production, Dustin says. The team has found a manufacturing partner in Taiwan that can help it scale production to meet demand if need be. It’s now looking to raise US$50,000 from its new campaign, in order to start shipping the finished product to backers in December 2016.

Clearing the air

The uHoo indoor air quality monitor looks largely unchanged from the iterations we saw last year, although the team has managed to streamline the innards of the device.

See: Breathe easier with this tiny indoor air quality monitor

The monitor contains eight sensors that track the air in your home or office. They measure temperature, humidity, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PM 2.5 (dust), air pressure, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ozone. The last three are included in the US$149 “premium” version, but not the US$99 “classic” one.

Photo credit: uHoo.

“There are a lot of sensors in the market, but not all of them get good data. So we wanted to focus on reliability. That’s why our prices are above the market, because we guarantee reliability of the product,” Dustin says.

Through the accompanying smartphone app, users can keep track of the air wherever they place the device. The monitor can cover an area of about 400 square feet (37 square meters), according to the team. The app employs a combination of color codes and stats to give users the information they need at a glance, and has some lengthier explainers for those who want to go deeper. Dustin says the team is working to improve the software now that the hardware is taken care of.

Data for public health