Top smartphones can take amazing photos these days, but that’s not all their high-powered cameras can do. A startup has repurposed the suite of sensors in leading Android smartphones to measure air quality, smoke levels, and more, giving users an idea of how safe their surroundings are.
A startup called MobilePhysics is announcing its new air-monitoring technology (called — note the space — Mobile Physics), which is embedded in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that Qualcomm announced earlier this year. Phonemakers can opt to implement Mobile Physics tech, and if so, will be available in a preinstalled app.
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The MobilePhysics company is focused on bringing this functionality to as many people as they can, chairman and Nobel Prize winner Roger Kornberg told CNET over email. Its technology can measure so-called PM2.5 pollutant particles (smaller than 2.5 microns across) passively when you use the phone, which could be helpful to most people on the planet — 99% of the world’s population breathes air exceeding the World Health Organization’s standards, Kornberg said.
“More people die from this exposure to PM2.5 than from any other cause of death including cancer, COPD, heart disease, you name it,” Kornberg said. “It affects every human cell, tissue and organ in ways we don’t yet understand.”
Much like how Apple has used Apple Watch sensors to measure new health metrics like blood oxygen, Mobile Physics uses smartphone sensors and cameras to determine ambient environmental factors including air quality, smoke levels, ultraviolet exposure, temperature and others — even while the phone is in a pocket.
Mobile Physics does these scans in the background while people check emails or otherwise have their phone out of their pockets. The app will notify users when their surroundings turn hazardous, from nudging to get under cover after staying in the sun too long to telling them to open a window or turn on an air purifier to improve air quality,…
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