The company is now officially launching on Kickstarter and expects to deliver its consumer product in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Woosh’s first product will have an injection-molded frame that allows filters to be changed which reduces waste to landfills. The smart filter is connected to a home’s Wi-Fi and transmits data to a mobile app, allowing filters to be delivered to homes in a subscription format. Woosh will use MERV13-rated filters that capture >50% of viruses and bacteria.
Woosh was founded by former Google product manager Winston Mok who struggled to find room air purifiers in stores during the 2019 California wildfires. Mok decided to build his own and quickly learned that portable room air purifiers do not solve the problem of air quality for the entire home.
This problem was amplified in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic, when employees were mandated to work from home.
“Working from home made me realize that consumers are blind to the air we are breathing and that the average air filter is rated at Merv 6, which does not capture smoke, bacteria, or virus carriers. In-room air filters are just bandaid solutions as the real problem to solve is the HVAC system for the entire home,” explained Mok.
Mok recognized three recurring problems: consumers have no visibility into the air quality of their homes; consumers do not know when their HVAC filter needs to be changed; and low-quality filters do not capture harmful bacteria or viruses.
Mok has big plans for his product. “What Nest did for the home thermostat is what we want to do for HVAC air filters. I left my job in 2021 with the goal to ensure everyone has the best air quality in their homes while providing important data to homeowners,” said Mok. “The goal is to ensure someone like my father, who’s 81 years old, and every other household member from infancy to their golden age, is receiving hospital-grade air quality on autopilot.”
