New gadgets are arriving that are designed to show you in real time just what you’re breathing in, with Internet-enabled indoor and outdoor air-quality sensors.

But one of these devices’ biggest challenges, their makers say, is keeping customers engaged by making sure they understand what the readings mean and how to act on them.

“What we think is really important with this kind of product and services, is that we really need to connect on the human level,” says Ronald Ro, cofounder of Bitfinder.

Having participated in the most recent round of the Internet of Things-focused R/GA Accelerator, Ro’s company plans to release its Awair indoor air-quality monitor this summer. The speaker-sized units will share the market with existing smart indoor-outdoor weather stations from French firm Netatmo, and ultimately with wearable environmental trackers from Vancouver-based TZOA, also slated for release later this year.

The Awair will monitor air temperature and humidity, along with levels of dust particles, carbon dioxide, and a class of chemicals called volatile organic compounds, which includes solvents like acetone and benzene and a range of various other substances of varying toxicity.

Bitfinder’s Awair air-quality monitor

Ro says the device will help businesses know when to ventilate a conference room stuffed with carbon dioxide and hot air from a morning’s worth of meetings, or make sure they’re adequately dealing with chemicals released into the air from overnight renovations. For home users, it’ll warn them if their bedrooms are getting uncomfortably dry overnight, or suggest they turn on their stovetop fans if their kitchens fill up with cooking exhaust.

Since most users won’t have the same intuitive understanding of CO2 levels and dust particle concentrations that they do of degrees Fahrenheit, the sensors’ accompanying smartphone app will offer five color-coded alert levels and text notifications emphasizing descriptions and suggestions, not numbers, Ro says.