How to breathe clean and healthy air at home, even in the middle of winter

• It is difficult to save energy, to keep the precious degrees within our walls… and to ventilate our interiors as necessary, when winter is here.

• But beware: allergens, viruses, but also dangerous, odorless and invisible gases such as CO and CO2 can occupy the space.

• From a simple detector (smoke, CO, CO2, etc.) to a purifier, it is now possible to simply equip yourself for a safe and healthy home.

Atmosphere, atmosphere... As winter sets in, gas and electricity prices skyrocket, we tend to lock ourselves in our homes... often forgetting to ventilate them.

Problem: two to eight times more polluted than the air outside, the air we breathe at home can become harmful.

Impossible, without being equipped for this, to check the quality.

A shame as we inhale and exhale up to 15,000 liters daily!

To protect you from possible small or large damage to your health and that of your children,

has identified the small equipment that will allow you to protect yourself.

Decontaminate a room: Shield Compact, from JVD

At a time when viruses (bronchiolitis, flu, Covid-19, etc.) are resisting, the French manufacturer of hygiene products JVD offers Shield Compact, its personal air purifier.

Discreet (160 x 145 x 125 mm for 805 g), available in white, green, blue or black, the small device was designed by the Belgian designer Ramy Fischler.

Vocation: to be placed on a desk, or a table, with the possibility of being transported, which is practical for people with allergies.

Designed for teleworking and spaces that are not easily ventilated, mobile, the Shield Compact is particularly suitable for small rooms.

Recalling that closed spaces are 2 to 8 times more polluted than the outside air, its manufacturer recommends it for surfaces of 20 m2 maximum.

“We deal with the invisible, but the air is constantly circulating.

It must therefore be treated constantly.

Five to six minutes are enough for the Shield Compact to create a bubble of healthy air around you.

The air of a room is for its part transformed in thirty minutes, fifteen minutes with the Boost mode ”, explains to 20 Minutes Anne Launois, head of consumer activity at JVD.

Allergens, fine particles, chemical pollutants, odors, viruses, moulds, bacteria… are captured and destroyed using a self-decontaminating filter, before the air sucked in is evacuated, purified, at 360°.

Our opinion:

Ideally positioned in front of you when working, or hung on the wall with a support (maximum height: 1.70 m), developed and manufactured in France, eco-designed, this small air purifier combines a multilayer HEPA filter, activated carbon filter and photocatalytic filter with UV-C.

An ionization system is also on board.

The great specificity of this purifier is that the filter is self-decontaminating and only needs to be replaced (58 euros) every 4,000 hours.

Attention, if it is discreet by its size, its noise level is not completely negligible: we measured it at 45 db (A) approximately, at 50 cm.

The equivalent of that of a dishwasher, for example.

Flushing out CO2: Carbon Dioxide Detector, by Chacon

CO2?

The famous greenhouse gas that poisons our planet by weakening the ozone layer can also be found in our interiors.

Without color or smell, it is produced there by breathing and combustion (as with a wood stove or a gas heater) and can be dangerous.

Mains and battery operated (autonomy up to 12 hours), this touch screen detector continuously measures the rate, from 400 to 5,000 ppm.

If this is too high (from 1,600 ppm), an alarm of 85 db (A) is triggered, indicating that it is necessary to ventilate the room where the device is located.

Our opinion:

From a certain level of contraction in the air, CO2 can be dangerous and have negative effects on our cognitive capacity and our psychomotor performance (such as decision-making), cause numbness, nausea … Useful in an office, a classroom, or at home in very busy rooms, this detector which is unfortunately not connected can go from room to room thanks to its battery.

It also measures temperature and humidity.

Dislodge carbon monoxide: CO detector, from Netatmo

Do you own a gas, wood, coal, oil or ethanol heating or combustion appliance?

Without you knowing it, or realizing it, this equipment can, in the event of poor combustion, emit a dangerous odorless and colorless gas: carbon monoxide (CO).

Connected, the Netatmo carbon monoxide detector notifies you, but above all triggers an alarm in real time if it detects at least 50 ppm (or "parts per million") of CO for 60 to 90 minutes (or at least 300 ppm for more than 3 minutes).

Our opinion:

Useless in collective dwellings which do not have their own boiler, this detector with an autonomy of up to 10 years can prove to be invaluable in a particular habitat, especially in this chilly winter when we hardly ventilate our interiors to save on the heating bill!

1,000 to 3,000 people are affected in France each year by carbon monoxide emissions.

A hundred would succumb to it.

Stalking Smoke: Homesmoke, by Avidsen

Weighted with its siren, the new Homesmoke smoke detector from Avidsen is connected.

In the event of smoke detection, an immediate alert on a smartphone will allow, for example, to carry out a remote doubt removal in the event of absence if one has an interior surveillance camera, or even to alert the emergency services without hang on.

The ecosystem of the manufacturer's products also makes it possible to automate the triggering of the detector with connected bulbs which, if necessary, can light up/blink to alert a hearing-impaired person, for example.

Our opinion:

Smoke detectors are mandatory in homes you own since 2015. More expensive than a basic model (you can find them at 10 euros), this connected model has the advantage, like others (with brands such as Netatmo, X-Sense, etc., to be part of the ecosystem of the same manufacturer and the same application around the connected home.

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• Winter

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• Air quality

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