Shashi Tharoor promotes Atovio Pebble air purifier, later says it stopped working: What is Atovio Pebble

When we think of air purifiers, we think of HEPA filters. But not Atvio, a company that specialises in making anions-based air purifiers, including Atovio Pebble — a personal air purifier. The Pebble is in news because just a day ago politician Shashi Tharoor posed while wearing it and posted the photo on his Twitter aka X feed. In the photo, Tharoor is posing with the Atovio team, wearing the pebble-shaped device as a pendant. Though hours later Tharoor tweeted again saying that his Pebble had stopped working.
It seems that Tharoor is a fan of portable air purifiers. As pollution in Delhi, where he is based as a politician, rises Tharoor apparently uses some wearable and portable air purifiers. Earlier he was using the AirTamer, a product similar to the Atovio Pebble. But the AirTamer is not made by an Indian company. The Pebble is.
“Many have been asking me about why I am no longer sporting an AirTamer around my neck, especially with air pollution at its worst in Delhi these days,” Tharoor Tweeted. “Quite simply, the device no longer could be charged. I have now discovered the Atovio, a made-in-India alternative, which claims to do the same thing more cheaply. The young team who make it ran into me yesterday. I complimented them on the sleek design of their product (which we are all wearing in the pic) and will try it for a while.”
Unfortunately for Tharoor — and possibly the Atovio team — Pebble too apparently stopped charging. Because several hours later Tharoor tweeted again, “Alas, my Atovio stopped working today despite being charged all night overnight. Guess some improvements are still in order!”
While Tharoor is doing his trial-and-error with personal and wearable air purifiers the question is: what are these Atovio and AirTamer purifiers and do they really work, particularly in a city like Delhi where air is so polluted that you can often taste it.
Let’s start with the basic premise: when we think of air purifiers we think of HEPA filters. Almost all commonly available air purifiers are essentially blow-in and blow-out air machines, with layers of filters sandwiched between this dirty and clean air. When you get an air purifier from a company like Dyson, Philips, Xiaomi and others, essentially you buy a box with a couple of motors in it and lots of filters. One of the motors sucks in surrounding air, pushes it through the filter and then another motor pushes out the clean air.
But personal air purifiers like the Atovio Pebble don’t use filters. Instead, they use anions to clean air. The technology, although touted by companies like AirTamer and Atovio as new, is not exactly novel or new. It has been in use sporadically for decades. Atovio says that its devices generate anions — negatively charged particles — and release them in air. These anions attach themselves to surrounding elements in the air — including pollutants, viruses and bacteria. And by attaching themselves to particles they charge them and force them to clump together.
The idea is that if you wear something like Atovio Pebble around your neck, it will clean up the air that you breathe. And to highlight that Pebble is effective, Atovio talks of testing its anions technology in partnership with IIT Kanpur, although on its website it doesn’t provide any specific details of the study.
While cleaning air with anions sounds very hi-tech and almost magical, one reason why regular air purifier — with filters and stuff — continue to be more prevalent and popular is because so far no one has conclusively proven that anions can really make air cleaner, and particularly in an outdoor space like Delhi roads. In fact, worldwide most anions purifiers are billed as health devices, effective against viruses and bacteria that people in confined spaces such as a doctor’s clinic or in an airplane can use. Rarely anion-based air purifiers are sold as regular air-purifiers.
Their effectiveness is also in doubt. Consumer Reports, a fairly respected organisation in the US, simply called anions-based air purifiers ineffective compared to HEPA air purifiers. This led to a company called The Sharper Image suing the Consumer Reports in 2003. However, the court tossed out the case and forced The Sharper Image to pay the legal fee of the Consumer Reports. This eventually led to air purifier users suing The Sharper Image. After failing to defend its products, The Sharper Image went bankrupt.
However, the fate of The Sharper Image has not dented the appeal of anion-based air purifiers as different companies across the world continue to keep touting it as a “revolutionary” technology.
As some parts of the world get more and more polluted, there are a number of companies that are pushing personal air purifiers. Atovio is not the only one. Even Dyson recently launched a product called Zone, which combined a headphone and a wearable mask — it used filters and anions — that people could wear while commuting. The product, although somewhat effective, did not find takers because of its weird design and weight.
In contrast to the Dyson Zone, products are Atovio Pebble or AirTamer are more elegant solutions. But it also seems that they are taking on outdoor conditions that are too big to be solved by a tiny gadget, even if it is effective. Realistically it is near impossible to get clean air in big outdoor settings when AQI is above 300 or more in a city. The only hope is when you are inside a confined space. Inside rooms, particularly if they are decently weather-sealed, it is possible to keep air clean despite outdoor pollution. Similarly in confined spaces like cars and other vehicles, it is possible to keep air clean. But irrespective of technology or gadget you are using, it is not possible to get clean air while walking out in a park when AQI in Delhi is 500.