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Masking up is one of those things that you might have to do until the coronavirus is eliminated, but if you don’t like the air quality, you might like LG’s latest device.
2020 may not have been the year everyone expected, but it’s definitely clear that it represents a change. Whether that change is something you like or not remains to be seen, but it definitely offers changes of many kinds.
Changes in phones, cameras, computers and sound and more, and changes in the kinds of things we use.
That is, face masks. Most of us mask ourselves when we have to, we put on a mask to face the outside world, we do what we can to avoid a virus that will not respect limits and could leave you in a worse condition. Technology doesn’t come to the rescue right away, and until there is a tried, tested, and true vaccine, masking and social distancing appears to be the strategy that will help humans best until this is conquered.
But technology can help, as scientists and engineers work together to create masks that can help us better survive day-to-day during this process. We recently saw what MIT researchers could find in a reusable, transparent face mask, and now it’s time for LG to show what it has in store.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, LG is taking a decidedly consumer electronics approach to face masks, although it’s something we’re surprised not to have seen at a large tech company before.
LG’s PuriCare portable air purifier, to be launched at IFA’s mid-year consumer tech fair in Germany, the second tech fair of the year now that the coronavirus has pretty much put an end to everything else, is a mask with electrical components. Inside are two HEPA H13 filters, two three-speed fans, and a proprietary “respirator sensor” to detect air cycle and volume breathed, all to keep the air in the mask clean, rather than the draft of air that masks keep us recycling.
Powered by an 820 mAh battery, LG says the PuriCare Portable Air Filter is good for up to eight hours on low power mode and up to two on high, and it’s not just the electric mask that has fans. There are also UV LEDs in the mask case, capable of killing some germs (though not likely to be the coronavirus), and the case can also send notifications to iOS and Android on when the mask filters need to be replaced.
In truth, LG isn’t the first company to launch a personal air filter, and there has been talk of Dyson’s patent application in the past highlighting an air purifier built into a pair of headphones, however it predates the pandemic we are all in now. So you wouldn’t be surprised if Dyson had returned to the drawing board looking for something new.
For now, it is not yet known if this LG device will have materials in Australia, but if we are all going to keep hiding for the next year, it is very likely that you will see this as the masks of many. , and possibly other brands to come.
