AirMeter
AR app for Clean Air Day 2024
Here at Studio ANRK we launched a new app on Clean Air Day, 20th June, 2024. It's a small idea but with big potential. What if you could see the pollution that is in our air with the naked eye?
Working with the Residents Association in Rectory Road in Hackney, East London, we were sponsored by Breathe London to develop an app that makes the pollution from car fumes visible to the naked eye.
You can smell the pollution levels in busy areas of London, like in many urban areas, but this App has really helped us understand how high our peaks are, especially in the morning and evening, when the road is congested.
This is very concerning for residents as there is a lot of medical evidence showing exposure to pollution increases your chances of cancer and Alzheimer's by as much as a staggering 20%. More than 800 young children were admitted to Homerton Hospital in East London with breathing difficulties in 2023.
Breathe London & the Imperial College have an air quality monitor installed on one of the busiest roads in East London, along the A10. And the data is made available in real time through an API. They are supported by the Mayor of London and the Bloomberg Philanthropies.
AirMeter is a super simple app, showing the immediate and accurate PM2.5 and NO2 pollution levels the meter registers, and displays it in AR - showing the toxic particles that float around our streets but are invisible to the naked eye. The visualisation responds to the data as it changes.
We think residents having direct access to the data in real time at any time of the day helps people understand better how these pollution levels change during the day. By visualising it we add another layer that gives everyone a more tangible way to understand the state quality of the air, and this feels like a powerful tool that can be expanded on further.
Here is a direct link to the IOS App, free to download from a phone on the App Store. It works anywhere in the world. Send us a screengrab or two! We’ll launch Android soon. And we’ll focus on ways we can expand the project further so stay tuned.
We are interested in community-led efforts to improve the lives of people through easy-to-use tools & technology. If you’d like to hear more about our plans for AirMeter or have a different project you’d like to discuss, send us a quick message here on Substack or at info@studioanrk.com.