When I started Smart Air, a lot of people asked me how long the HEPAs last. Several people criticized the DIY on Zhihu because they said you’d probably have to change the HEPA so often that it’d end up being more expensive than the expensive brands. At the time, I really wanted to … Read more
We know that air pollution is bad for our health, it causes heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer. But how about the more day to day impacts of air pollution? Feeling tired, drowsy or does going to the office make you sick? The data shows that poor indoor air quality is … Read more
The World Health Organization tallied up all the deaths due to outdoor air pollution based on different causes, and the major killer isn’t what most people think. Asthma, lung cancer, and emphysema come to mind when we think about air pollution. But lung problems are only a small portion of the … Read more
The other day, someone on Quora asked whether ionizers actually purify the air. This is an important question because ionizer purifiers are all over the place. For example, I was at a friend’s apartment in the US, and I saw his tower fan had an ionizer button on it: It’s … Read more
HEPA filters are a nearly perfect solution for air pollution. They are backed by tons of scientific tests; they’re pretty cheap; they use about as much energy as a lightbulb; they even have documented health benefits. Just about the only remaining problem is that you have to throw out the HEPA filters every … Read more
After I tested every fan in China I could find with a flat front… …the results of one fan stood out above the rest. Because of its appearance and how much butt it kicked, I called it “the Cannon.” In Anna’s 15m2 Beijing bedroom, it crushed particulates. It removed 97% of … Read more
Tech companies love to talk about how automation, internet of things, and the connected house are going to make the machines we use every day more convenient. But does it work? Anyone who’s used Apple’s Siri or “talk to text” feature know that the promises of technology sometimes fall short. … Read more
When I started Smart Air in 2013, I wanted to buy an air quality monitor. I had basically two options. I could buy a US$260 Dylos or spend thousands of dollars on the crazy expensive particle counters. Since then, the market has exploded with new air quality monitors as cheap as … Read more
We posted info and data on our findings on whether masks really can stop pollution. My judgment after reading up on mask tests and testing them myself is that the science is pretty well settled. Masks do work. But there are still mysteries that need answers. Perhaps the biggest mystery out there … Read more
Four years ago, I was coughing through a Beijing winter and wanted some clean air. But all the purifiers I could find cost hundreds of dollars, so I strapped a filter to a fan I had at home and made my first DIY purifier. It wasn’t pretty, but I … Read more
