AirPop Active Plus Halo Connected Smart Mask Review - It Tracks Breathing! Is It Glasses Friendly?

Given I'm in the midst of getting my vaccine (they're available to gen pop in Colorado if you're in my state), and masks are still required in many parts of the US, AND I've lived in places with bad air quality, I was intrigued with the Airpop Active+ Halo Smart Mask when I saw it during virtual CES this year.

It's $149.99. This is a connected mask that is intelligently designed for comfort and features a Bluetooth enabled sensor to track your breathing and pollutants in the air, to let you know when you need to replace the filter, and give you data about the air quality based on your location and AQI reports.

App available for iOS and coming soon to Android.

Includes the lightweight and breathable outer shell with the smart connected Halo sensor built in, and four replacement filters that attach to the interior of the shell. The airknit outer shell is water resistant and flexible and it has adjustable ear loops. The filters should be replaced after 40 hours of use. Four filters is $24.99.

In order to wear it, you place a filter on the inside following their directions and fit it to your face. The filter itself is structured for a human face with full 360 degree sealing thanks to this flexible seal around the edges. It was a bit of a struggle for me to find my perfect fit because my nose doesn't have a high bridge, but once found it was definitely comfortable to wear, definitely lightweight, and when I was out in cold weather, it didn't fog up my glasses since yes - I was able to obtain a full seal on all sides.

It is contoured to sit OFF of your face on the inside so it creates a nice canopy of air on the inside so it doesn't sit directly on your mouth. It's really breathable and even in this high Colorado altitude, I'm fine wearing it. I love that I can wear Chapstick or a lip balm while wearing the mask since this is a dry climate and other masks will stick to balms while wearing.

So before I get into the IoT side of this mask, I also wanted to mention that AirPop put the mask through testing and certification with results showing 99.3% particle filtration (PFE) and 99.9% bacterial filtration (BFE) plus fluid resistance. Exceeds Community face covering guidelines.

So we're good on comfort and actual filtration use. Now let's get into the sensor and app.

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So to set up the AirPop app, you have to give them your phone number to get an SMS verification code in order to set up your account, which is odd. I hate giving apps my phone number, but I do have like three numbers for account segregation.

You can switch the account from your phone number to a username and can also update your password in the app.

The app tracks your location to give you up to date air quality index information hour to hour, and gives you recommendations for mask use based on that data.

When you open a new filter, you can scan the QR code and it'll start tracking how long until you should replace the filter based on your time of use. AirPop recommends 40 hours of use.

It knows how long you've been using it based on this smart sensor built into the mask. This is the Halo sensor. It connects to the app via Bluetooth and senses breathes taken and pollutants in the air. You know it's working because the LED ring lights up whenever you breath in or out. You can change the light color and can update the firmware or sync manually through the app. Eventually the battery would need to be replaced with a new CR1632 battery. You can see how many breaths you've taken, pollutants captured, and the wearing time. It'll also show you an equivalent value based on cigarettes.

It's definitely pricey, as are the replacement filters... but I don't have any other masks that fit as well as this one does nor do I have one that gives me a data report.

I wore this one out when I got my first vaccine dose and it was great. I really appreciate that it doesn't fog up my glasses and it sits off my face so I can easily talk to people without sounding muffled. I would probably not use this mask all the time because these proprietary filters are expensive, but for travel, long wear times, or high risk situations it would be my go to.

LINKS:

https://www.airpophealth.com/us/airpop-active-smart-black-yellow

FTC disclosure: The AirPop mask was sent to me for review.