Affected by poor air quality? There’s an app for that…

The CleanSpace tag is a phone-sized pocket air pollution sensor that monitors the air around you and sends details to a smartphone app. Popular science author and GH tech expert Brian Clegg gave it a test run...


Air quality is a growing concern, particularly on city streets, with pollutants causing respiratory diseases as well increasing the risk of heart attack. Poor air quality is a major cause of disease and death, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, and its recently published list of cities and towns that are failing to meet the standards for air quality includes London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds and Oxford. WHO says 80% of cities worldwide that measure outdoor air pollution do not have safe levels of air quality.

Now, though, there's a device to help you The CleanSpace tag sits in a pocket or bag and keeps track of a key pollutant, carbon monoxide, which predicts the levels of other nasties like particles from diesel exhausts. As you walk around, the app tracks where you’ve been and how clean the air that you breath is.

The tag is very light and powers itself by feeding on Wi-Fi energy, so doesn’t need charging. Its matching free phone app is attractive, but confusing. This is because it does two things – monitors air quality and encourages you to walk or bike more, offering rewards when you rack up ‘clean miles.’ Once familiar with it, though, it’s an effective way to track your healthy miles and make sure the routes you take are low in air pollution.

Because the app connects to the tag by Bluetooth and uses the phone’s location software, it does make the phone battery drain faster than usual, and it occasionally gets confused and doesn’t record a journey, but over time, it builds a good picture of your healthy travel and exposure to pollution.

It's available for £75 from or Amazon