Image: Infrogmation. Used under creative commons license
New Zealand start-up Tether has developed a battery-powered monitoring system communicating via Sigfox able to detect and alert on the presence of damp, mould and noxious fumes in residential accommodation.
It says at least half of New Zealand homes are affected by cold, damp and mould, and the country has some of the highest rates of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in the world due to these poor living conditions.
The move comes just six months since IoTAustralia reportedNew Zealand charity Whare Hauora — which also manufactures similar sensors — calling on the Government to fund the provision of temperature and humidity sensors for every room in the homes of those in need to enable them to better understand their home environment.
The charity said a third of NZ homes were cold or damp and respiratory illness was the third leading cause of death in the nation, and costs $NZ5.5b per year.
Tether AirQ sensors can be monitored by a central dashboard and the company says they detect health threats like mould, mildew, harmful volatile organic compounds and carbon dioxide, as well as home temperature, relative humidity, light and pressure.
“The system also makes dew-point calculations (when vapour condenses to turn windows into waterfalls), one of the single biggest causes of poor health and property damage,” it says.
A snooping tool for landlords?
Tether CEO, Brandon van Blerk said: “A landlord or the resident of the house can detect – via the central reporting dashboard – if there is rotting garbage in a house, overcrowding, dishes that have gone unwashed for a long period or even if the current residents are cooking methamphetamine on site.”
Earlier this year Housing New Zealand commissioned a pilot programme for 550 Tether AirQ sensors across 155 homes.
“Housing New Zealand initially ran the system in their call centres and were very impressed,” van Blerk said. “Since then, we’ve have had interest from insurers like IAG and Crawford and Company.
“Insurers tell us that, based on the data, they could purchase air purifiers instead of paying out for the respiratory health costs of policy holders. Prevention is always better than cure.
Tether says similar hobbyist type environmental monitoring devices can be purchased at home and hardware stores but are expensive, power hungry, limited in terms of what they can measure and do not connect to a central network.
The company claims venture capitalists and investors are “lining up” and enquiries are coming in from overseas. van Blerk said the company hoped to establish Tether as the brand synonymous with healthy homes in New Zealand and worldwide.
However, “While there are a number of interested parties, Tether plans to launch a friends and family capital raising venture shortly because the shareholders want to keep the company within the family for as long as possible,” the company said.
Whare Hauora also offering sensors
Earlier this year Whare Hauora launched a PledgeMe campaignasking for support from New Zealanders to provide free sensor kits to communities in need. It was looking to raise $NZ150,000. However it closed the funding in August after raising $NZ40,000
Its system comes as a kit of four sensors that communicate over short-range wireless to a gateway that plugs into the home router, and communicates with Whare Hauora’s cloud based platform. The dashboard is accessed via a smartphone app.
Tether’s sensors are Sigfox-enabled standalone devices that communicate directly to Tether’s platform running on AWS.
