CleanSpace

This device could make you healthier, while earning you rewards for being environmentally-friendly. The CleanSpace Tag, developed by former science minister Lord Paul Drayson's technology firm, claims to be the first commercial device powered by wasted energy in wireless transmissions.

Launched this week, the CleanSpace Tag is a carbon monoxide sensor that monitors personal air quality. "The technology harvests the energy which is in wireless transmissions," Drayson tells WIRED. "We're using the effectively wasted energy, and recycling that."


The Tag uses a system the firm has dubbed Freevolt, which has been around since the 1960s when Nasa experimented with it. As the frequencies are so low -- just 20 to 30 nanowatts -- the technology has never made it into commercial use, until now.

The CleanSpace Tag is able to run on a very low amount of energy, allowing it to utilise wireless waste. Using an antenna, the Tag takes power from wavebands of the electromagnetic spectrum -- the Wi-Fi and mobile phone networks that silently travel around us all -- and uses them to run the low-power sensor.

Lord Drayson launched Drayson Technologies after he left political office in 2010. In its first few years the company worked on creating a second generation of bioethanol fuels and high performance electric cars. In 2013, Drayson set a world land speed record for a lightweight electric car -- hitting 204.2 mph.

During this time the company was also looking into wireless charging for electric devices. That was when it came across Freevolt and decided to think about what could be powered with it. "We thought it would be a pretty cool thing if we could make a product, which enabled people to know what the air quality is like where they are," says Drayson.


Drayson and four of his children are asthmatic. He has spent a lot of time thinking about air quality and wanted to solve London's shortage of sensors -- the city has just 160 fixed sensors monitoring air quality for more than 8.5 million people. So Drayson Technologies designed the CleanSpace Tag. "It's a little bit smaller and thinner than a typical smartphone, a lot lighter than a smartphone. You carry it with you all the time and it's constantly measuring the air quality where you are," he says.

The Tag communicates with the CleanSpace app via Bluetooth to provide users with localised air quality data, which is also sent to a larger database that will collect data from across the UK. The app also offers rewards for environmentally-friendly behaviour through "clean miles." "I have 241 clean miles," explains Drayson, proudly. With those he can get a two month subscription to magazine subscription service Readly, Payasugym passes, and a cable bike lock from Halfords. He's been using the app for three months. In total, the 2,200 people currently using CleanSpace have a total of 11,000 clean miles. "It's a great way of using the technology to help achieve a change to something which otherwise would be seen as beyond our ability to do something about," he says.

The technology behind Freevolt is available to developers for a fee and could also be used to power sensors, beacons and wearables according to Drayson Technologies. The CleanSpace Tag will be shipped in November and cost £50. The app is already available for iOS and Android.