“Literally the coolest thing I saw at CES was the Sprimo air purifier.”
“… designed from the ground up with intelligence in mind”
“We’ve written about a number of air purifiers before, but Sprimo is taking a different approach — instead of trying to clean all the air in the room, it creates a personalized stream of clean air for individual users.”
“…a smart personal air purifier that is engineered to tell you exactly what’s in the air you’re breathing.”
“While the majority are wasting time and energy cleaning an entire room, the Sprimo Personal Air Purifier uses high-tech sensors to detect the crappiness of the air around you and then spew out a mountain-fresh breeze right to your nose.”
“…the Sprimo is 50 times more efficient than a traditional one.”
“…it’s a desktop version, more geared at producing a personalized bubble of clean air for you, for use either at home or at work.”
“…you can use Sprimo to find out if there might be new irritants/particles in the air that might be causing your recent health issues.”
“…it actually analyses it and tells you exactly what is floating about around you.”
Sprimo personal, connected air purifier: Co-founder/CEO Ray Combs [interview]
“The device is certainly sleek; it would have fit in right in on a Sharper Image (RIP) showroom floor. It’s quiet, too, so it won’t inhibit your productivity while it places you inside its protective bubble of happy air.”
iTech: Sprimo
The Sprimo air purifier has two modes of operation, one for enveloping the user in a bubble of clean, fresh air and one for cleaning the air of an entire room.
In this mode, Sprimo is pointed directly at the user while it quietly emits a soft stream of purified air. Sprimo forms the clean air into a smooth, laminar flow, which becomes turbulent shortly after exiting the body. This forms the bubble of fresh air that surrounds the user.
In turbo mode, Sprimo’s body is pointed straight up and the fan turned on full blast. The purified air exiting the body collides with the aluminum handle, which diffuses the air throughout the room. This lets Sprimo quickly purify all the air in the space.
Sprimo is the world’s first truly smart air purifier. It instantly envelops you in a bubble of fresh air, whether you are in a small room or a large open space. Sprimo is 50 times better than conventional air purifiers at delivering clean air. Not only is the air cleaner, but it arrives within seconds rather than hours, and at a fraction of the price of conventional purifiers and filters.
Sprimo is “smart” not only because it connects to your phone (it does) or has an interactive touchscreen display (of course). Sprimo is also smart because it is armed with a host of state-of-the-art sensors that monitor the quality of the surrounding air, collecting data so that Sprimo can adaptively make the air cleaner, while personalizing how air is delivered to you based on your specific needs and preferences.
Our core team includes a Ph.D. in chemistry from NYU specializing in indoor air quality, a product manager behind development of the Amazon Kindle, and an industrial designer responsible for the Nike Fuel band, the Dropcam camera, and Google Chromecast. We’ve been working on Sprimo for the last two years and now, with your help as our first backers, we are ready to raise the bar for air purification.
Fits easily on your desk. Keep the air in your office sweet and clean.
A conventional air purifier is dead simple – a fan forces air through a filter. Assuming the filter isn’t already choked and clogged from years of (ab)use, the idea is that the bad stuff, such as dust, dander, and pollen, stays in the filter while clean air comes out the other side. It’s definitely not rocket science.
But it should be. Polluted air kills around four million people a year. The incidence of childhood asthma has doubled in the last ten years. Increasingly erratic weather causes mold and pollen to spike unexpectedly. The dizzying (pun intended) array of petrochemicals, toxins, and “cleaners” added to household products borders on low-grade chemical warfare.
Yet, conventional air purifiers are a flimsy, inefficient line of defense – typically only one percent of their purified air output is actually inhaled by an occupant of the space. Even then, that air is often no longer clean by the time it reaches the occupant’s lungs – the many pollution sources (e.g., building materials, cleaning products) that make indoor air quality two to five times worse than outdoor have already infested the newly “purified” air.
What’s more, conventional air purifiers raise more questions than they answer. What if the problem in your room isn’t dust, dander, or pollen, but volatile organic compounds (VOCs)? How do you choose a filter when pollen counts are expected to go through the roof due to this year’s strong El Nino, but the main pollutants in your region are particulate matter up to 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5)? How do you know if the throughput of the heavy, inscrutable box chugging away loudly in the corner is any match for a cavernous, musty basement with twenty year-old shag carpet, two kids, three dogs, and a cat with dandruff? Without expensive, ongoing testing you don’t know. Unless you have Sprimo.
Clean: 50x more efficient clean air delivery than whole room purifiers.
Instant: Fresh air delivered in seconds, not hours.
Adaptive: Filter can be customized based on sensor data and lab analysis.
Quiet: <40 dB (projected) versus 49-59 dB (whole room purifiers).
Efficient: 1/8th the power consumption of whole room purifiers.
Economical: Device and filters cost half as much as whole room purifiers and filters.
Sustainable: Recyclable filters are replaced based on usage and air quality.
Place Sprimo on your night stand to get a good night sleep and relief of allergies without meds.
Other Purifiers | Sprimo | |
---|---|---|
Form factor | Large, loud box | Compact, quiet, adjustable gimbal |
Modes of operation | Clean the whole room | Clean the whole room or your personal bubble of air |
Operating efficiency | 1% of filtered air delivered to breathing zone | >50% of filtered air delivered to breathing zone |
Spatial limitations | Limited to rooms of a certain size | Personal bubble is generated in a room of any size |
Time to clean air | Hours to clean an entire room | Seconds to envelop the user in clean air |
Energy efficiency | Recommended to run 24/7 | Run only when the user is present |
Partition requirements | Room needs to be sealed | Doors and windows can be open |
Noise pollution | Loud at high throughput (49-59 dB) | Quiet (<40 dB projected) |
Fan control | Coarse (low, medium, high) | Fine (0-100) |
Filter options | One filter that doesn’t fit all | Customized, filter-based data collected |
Changing the filter | Messy, complicated process that requires tools | Clean, one-handed twist-to-remove and twist-to-insert |
Used filter disposal | Landfill | Recycled |
Used filter analysis | None | Deep biological and/or chemical analysis |
Sense of ownership | Purifier belongs to the room | Purifier belongs to you |
Awareness | Dumb and not data driven | Smart (five sensors, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) and data driven |
Air Quality Sensors | Temperature, Humidity, CO2, VOCs, PM2.5 |
Operational Sensors | Fan speed, power usage, wireless signal strength (RSSI), filter presence sensor (NFC) |
Fan | Variable speed (0-100 versus low/medium/high) |
Connectivity | 802.11 B, G, N with WPA2, Bluetooth Low Energy |
User Interface | 2.5” touchscreen, phone app, and web app |
Phone Compatibility | iPhone 5 with iOS 8 or later (Android coming soon) |
Firmware | Embedded Linux |
Data Access | Open API (to be published) to owner’s data |
Filter Options | Variations of different grades of HEPA media, pleated activated carbon, pleated impregnated carbon, or combination thereof |
Body Dimensions | 10” diameter, 4.6” depth (without frame and base) |
Body Material | Injection molded ABS |
Frame and Base Material | Solid aluminum |
Overall Dimensions | 12” height x 10.7” width x 8” depth (with frame and base) |
Weight | 7.5 pounds |
Power Requirements | 110V AC to 24 VDC wall adapter included, maximum 15 Watts |
Cabling | Power cable internally routed through base and gimbal hinge |
Portability | Integrated aluminum handle and base, travel case available |
Sprimo uses a built-in NFC reader to discover exactly what kind of filter is currently installed, along with details such as when the filter was manufactured.
For this campaign, only one general-purpose filter is available. However, as we gather data about our users’ air quality and needs, we will offer other types of filters in various combinations.
Variable Layers of MediaProvide Customizable Filtering
A. Color Outside indicates the Filter Media Inside
B. NFC Serial Number for Tracking Usage & Allergen Analysis
Because Sprimo knows exactly how much air it has filtered, the quality of that air, and the type of filter currently installed, it can alert you to change its filter based on actual use, not on a fixed interval of time regardless of use like other air purifiers.
Sprimo’s filter can be replaced in seconds with one hand and no tools. Simply twist and pull to remove. Similarly, to install a new filter, simply insert and twist.
Return your used filter in the packaging of your new filter and we’ll break it down for recycling.
Not only will your Sprimo air purifier tell you directly about the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and PM2.5 levels of your air, but we also offer two types of deep laboratory analyses that give you a wealth of information.
A chemical analysis of a used Sprimo filter will reveal the quantity and type of:
Example chemical analysis report: PDF
A biological analysis of a used Sprimo filter will reveal the quantity and type of:
Example biological analysis report: PDF
Sprimo is quiet enough for your library. You’ll be smarter with Sprimo.
Ray Combs, CEO Ray comes to Sprimo with decades of product development and management experience. Most recently he was VP of Products at HandScape, an innovative line of mobile device cases that funded at 305% on Kickstarter. Prior to that he held positions as Director of Product Management at Livescribe, Lytro Camera, and Memeo, as Senior Product Manager at Amazon Labs, and as a Product Manager at PalmSource, Palm and Tap Wave. He also serves as a Principal Consultant at RC Consulting Group and as a member of the Board of Advisors at The Harold Frank Entrepreneurship Institute at Washington State University. | |
Harold Han, CTO Harold received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University in 2012. Before joining Sprimo, Harold was a Senior Scientist at Bio-Rad Laboratories, leading the chemistry team for product development. Harold’s expertise lies in aqueous/gaseous filtration chemistry, with extensive experience in air quality testing, filter media evaluation. and fluidal analysis based on computational simulation. Harold is also an expert on the chemistry of air quality sensing technology, for both solid and gaseous pollutants. | |
Dan Harden, Head Designer Dan is an industrial designer with decades of experience and the winner of over 200 design awards. Throughout his prolific career, Dan has designed hundreds of successful products, from baby bottles to super computers. Examples include: Google Chromecast, Eton emergency radios, Roku TV devices, Braun Thermoscan thermometers, Logitech mice, and many more. Dan and his work have been featured in many publications and media outlets, including Business Week, CNN, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, and Wired. Dan is currently CEO of Whipsaw, Inc., a Silicon Valley design firm that was ranked among 2009’s “Top Five Design Firms in the World” by Fast Company magazine. |
While we have put together a solid production plan surrounding the Sprimo, we know things do come up. While we do not expect any issues, here are some challenges that could potentially arise:
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