The instrument
Nine channels, no moving parts, and one number you can act on
Most air quality monitors are a CO₂ cell in a plastic box. This is a measurement instrument that happens to be worth leaving out on a desk, and it is specified in enough detail that you can argue with the specification.
- Chassis
- 82 mm cube, machined 6061-T6
- Mass
- 540 g with the counterweight base
- Display
- 2.4″ transflective, 480 × 480
- Sampling
- 1 Hz across every channel
- Logging
- 2 years on-device at 1-minute resolution
- Acoustics
- Silent — convective, fanless
Industrial design
Four constraints, in the order they were decided
- 01
It has to survive being looked at every day
This object sits in your eyeline for a decade. So the chassis is a single billet of 6061 machined, bead-blasted and anodised — not a moulded shell with a metallic paint pass. It gains a patina rather than scratches.
- 02
It has to be silent
Every fan-cooled monitor on the market makes a sound you stop consciously hearing and never stop being affected by. Air moves through OptiBreath by convection, up a chimney path machined into the chassis. There is nothing inside it that moves.
- 03
It has to be readable, and then invisible
A transflective memory-in-pixel panel gets brighter in sunlight instead of washing out, and drops to a single dim status glyph below five lux. It will not light your room at 2am, and it will not become a black mirror at noon.
- 04
It has to outlive us
Replaceable sensor modules, a replaceable battery, a published service manual and a local API that works with the cloud switched off. If this company disappears, you still own a working instrument.
Sensing
Every channel, with its principle and its error bars
A specification quoted without an accuracy figure is a marketing claim. Here are ours, with the error bars attached.
Scroll for every column →
| Channel | Principle | Range | Accuracy | Resolution | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CO₂ Carbon dioxide | Dual-channel NDIR with sealed reference, pressure-compensated | 400 – 10,000 ppm | ±(30 ppm + 3% of reading) | 1 ppm | All |
PM1 / PM2.5 / PM10 Particulate matter | Laser scattering optical particle counter, 0.3 – 10 µm | 0 – 1,000 µg/m³ | ±(5 µg/m³ + 5% of reading) | 0.1 µg/m³ | All |
tVOC Volatile organic compounds | Metal-oxide gas sensor array with NOx discrimination | VOC index 0 – 500 | Relative index, self-baselining over 24 h | 1 index point | All |
T / RH Temperature & humidity | CMOSens capacitive element on a thermally isolated boom | −10 – 60 °C · 0 – 100 % RH | ±0.1 °C · ±1.0 % RH | 0.01 °C · 0.01 % RH | All |
hPa Barometric pressure | Piezo-resistive absolute pressure sensor | 300 – 1,250 hPa | ±0.5 hPa | 0.01 hPa | All |
lux Ambient light | Photopic-corrected ambient light sensor with CCT estimation | 0.01 – 60,000 lux | ±10% | 0.01 lux | All |
HCHO Formaldehyde | Electrochemical cell with temperature compensation | 0 – 1,000 ppb | ±(20 ppb + 10% of reading) | 1 ppb | Pro |
NO₂ Nitrogen dioxide | Electrochemical cell, cross-sensitivity compensated | 0 – 2,000 ppb | ±(15 ppb + 15% of reading) | 1 ppb | Pro |
Rn Radon | Pulsed ionisation chamber, passive diffusion | 0 – 20,000 Bq/m³ | ±10% at 200 Bq/m³ after 7 days | 1 Bq/m³ | Pro |
Specification
The rest of it.
Enclosure
- Dimensions
- 82 × 82 × 82 mm
- Mass
- 540 g
- Material
- CNC-machined 6061-T6 aluminium, bead-blasted, Type II anodised
- Finishes
- Natural Silver, Graphite
- Base
- Machined stainless counterweight with a milled silicone foot
- Airflow
- Convective chimney path — no fan, no moving parts, silent
Display
- Panel
- 2.4-inch transflective memory-in-pixel LCD
- Resolution
- 480 × 480, 283 ppi
- Brightness
- Automatic, 0.2 – 800 nits, photopic-corrected
- Night behaviour
- Falls to a single dim status glyph below 5 lux
- Refresh
- 1 Hz live, 1 minute logged
Connectivity
- Wireless
- Wi-Fi 6 (2.4 / 5 GHz), Bluetooth LE 5.3, Thread
- Wired
- USB-C data, Ethernet and PoE via dock (Pro and Fleet)
- Local API
- REST and MQTT over the LAN, mDNS discovery — every tier
- Integrations
- Home Assistant, Matter, Prometheus, webhooks
- Offline mode
- Fully functional with networking disabled
Power
- Input
- USB-C PD, 5 V 3 A
- Battery
- 3,200 mAh LiFePO₄, approximately 8 hours untethered
- Typical draw
- 1.4 W steady state
Data
- On-device history
- 2 years at 1-minute resolution
- Export
- CSV, Parquet, JSON — full resolution, no paywall
- Cloud
- Optional. EU region. Off by default.
Compliance
- Certification
- CE, UKCA, FCC Part 15B, RoHS, REACH
- Calibration
- ABC continuous, plus manual single-point (Pro: traceable certificate)
- Warranty
- 3 years (Core) · 5 years (Pro and Fleet)
- Repairability
- Published service manual, replaceable sensor modules and battery
In the box
What arrives.
No dongles, no proprietary adapter, no starter subscription you have to cancel.
- OptiBreath unit in your chosen finish
- Braided USB-C to USB-C cable, 2 m
- 45 W USB-C power supply with regional plug
- Machined desk stand with a 12° reading rake
- Calibration record card with your unit's serial and factory reference values
- A short book on ventilation and cognition, written for people who will check the citations
Core at €390. Pro at €690.
Sixty-day return for any reason, once units ship. No payment and no card details, just an email address.