Inspired by an accident in its own offices, the company created air quality monitors fit for industrial and home use.

In 2015, a fire broke out in one of tMonitor’s research and development centers, filling its rooms with smoke. Although the flames were put out and there was minimal damage and injuries, the team wondered what might have happened if no one was at the facility. Without an actual person to trigger the fire alarm, would the whole place have burned down?

This set the team on a path to design and build an automated air quality monitoring system that could prevent major financial damage—and tragedy—should a crisis occur in factories or other indoor settings.

In 2021, Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment reported that the country had 260 active industrial parks spread across three key economic zones. As these industrial zones become increasingly popular as investment targets for local and foreign businesses, more workers are being packed into these places. A disaster such as a fire could put many lives at risk, yet there are few real-time industrial air quality monitoring systems that could mitigate this risk.

To address this gap in the market, tMonitor created a hardware device that collects, monitors, and analyzes indoor air quality to make recommendations for protective action in hazardous situations. The company claims that its air quality monitoring services are 80% cheaper than competitors’ prices.

The system takes 13 indicators into consideration to ascertain air quality. These factors include the environment’s Air Quality Index, the amounts of inhalable particles and harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide, and environmental conditions such as humidity.

If tMonitor’s system generates air quality readings that are within unsafe parameters, the device can execute predefined actions in response to the emergency. This can involve alerting managers about safety protocols through an application, contacting relevant authorities, and providing advice on how to answer media queries.

tMonitor’s system can be used in residential homes too. It can integrate with smart device ecosystems such as SmartHome, which connects all home devices in a centralized system for easier control, allowing it to activate other devices if it detects hazardous air quality. For instance, harmful chemicals such as volatile organic compounds are often emitted from household cleaning and personal care products. A tMonitor device can activate the use of an air purifier or advise users to open a window to keep air quality within safe levels.

tMonitor was among the finalists of the Alibaba Cloud x KrASIA Global Startup Accelerator Vietnam-Indonesia Demo Day that was held on February 10.

Sarah Koh