Blueair Builds a Scalable IoT System for Connected Air Purifiers on AWS

Blueair, a leading producer of premium air purifiers for home and professional use, launched a new generation of connected products called HealthProtect, which proactively monitors air quality and tracks levels of fine particles and volatile organic compounds as well as the probability of germ growth. Blueair is already a player in the connected device space, but as it noticed that more of its customers were using connected home products, the company knew it was time to prepare for a future when all its devices, which are popular in over 60 countries, would be connected on the Internet of Things (IoT).

To achieve the global scalability necessary to support a growing number of connected devices around the world, Blueair rapidly developed and deployed its HealthProtect product line using an IoT system on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Building on AWS enables enhanced security and privacy for Blueair’s customers and supports releases of new and upgraded features so that every air purifier continues to deliver value throughout its life span. “Freedom to breathe clean, healthy air as nature intended is our promise to consumers,” says Johan Alvenberg, IoT program lead at Blueair. “By proactively monitoring the air quality and ensuring 24/7 protection against harmful pollutants, we are doing just that. For the tech savvy, we have also added smart, premium usability and functions.”

Blueair was founded in 1996 in Sweden, with the purpose of improving access to clean air while minimizing its products’ impact on the environment. The company was acquired by Unilever in 2016. Today its air purifiers are used by governments, homes, and offices in over 60 countries around the world. In 2015, Blueair launched the world’s first connected air purifier. The company soon realized that to speed up its development timeline and achieve a return on investment, it needed to build directly on AWS. In 2019, the company did just that, reimagining its patented air purifier—which boasts one of the highest clean air delivery rates in the industry—as a connected device with accurate filter tracking, app-enabled features, and voice control with smart device compatibility. “By changing our technology foundation on AWS, we can focus on the value added, deliver features quickly, and drive the connected experience as a market leader by adopting new technologies, finding new partnerships, and engaging with our consumers in new ways,” says Anders Overgaard, global head of IT at Blueair.

Using AWS for the HealthProtect product line was a natural choice for Blueair. The company’s IT team had used AWS when it connected its latest line of air purifiers on AWS IoT Core—a managed cloud service that supports billions of devices without the need to provision or manage servers. Blueair’s parent company, Unilever, had also built on AWS. And AWS has a global footprint that enabled Blueair’s goals of international growth. All these factors made using AWS ideal. Finally, the wide range of solutions offered by AWS could help Blueair achieve its high-level goals without having to manage services in-house, thereby freeing up the company to focus on new features and functions.

When implementing the HealthProtect product line, Blueair opted to use AWS IoT Core as a central point for managing its growing system of connected devices. From there, it uses microservices to store air-quality data and support functionalities such as voice assistance through Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Integration for AWS IoT and 1-Click filter reordering through Amazon Dash Replenishment. The company also introduced a SmartFilter feature, which calculates each filter’s life span, tracks its life cycle, and reminds the customer to replace it when the time comes. It’s simple for customers to automate the reordering of replacement filters either directly from Blueair or through third parties, such as Amazon Dash Replenishment, so customers can always have a high level of air purification.

To engage with their home devices, customers use the Blueair app, which communicates with Blueair’s IoT platform using Amazon API Gateway—a fully managed service that enables developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs. The Blueair app communicates with the device itself by way of the AWS IoT Device Shadow service. This service maintains a virtual clone of the device in the cloud, the state of which can be read or modified at any time—even when an air purifier is turned off—and synchronizes with the real-world device when connected. This is critical for supporting the HealthProtect air purifier’s GermShield function, which detects germ-prone environments and kills bacteria and viruses, even when the device is on standby.

For its computing needs, Blueair uses AWS Lambda, a serverless compute service that enables developers to run code without provisioning or managing servers. Finally, it securely stores data, including air-quality information, on Amazon DynamoDB, a serverless NoSQL database. The security features built into all AWS services enable secure communication among devices, Blueair’s mobile app, and AWS. Maintaining high standards for protecting customer privacy has never been simpler for Blueair.

From a technical perspective, implementation was relatively straightforward because of Blueair’s existing familiarity with the services offered by AWS. But coordinating with teams around the globe—including manufacturers in China, cloud developers in India, and Blueair’s innovation hub in Sweden—to add various subsystems made the process more complex. By using AWS Professional Services, Blueair could keep work streams flowing and manage all moving parts. “The AWS Professional Services team helped us follow AWS best practices for our system maturity, deliverables, designs, and implementations,” says Alvenberg. “It more or less functioned like an AWS advisory forum and helped us quickly make a deliverable without compromising security and compliance.”

Once architecture and business requirements were clear, Blueair was able to bring HealthProtect air purifiers from development to initial sales to customers’ homes in less than 1 year. Since the turnaround time for new products was previously greater than 1 year, the company achieved a shorter timeline. Blueair’s service also enables continuous innovation without service disruption to its customers.

By building a new line of connected air purifiers from the ground up on AWS, Blueair gained the ability to scale up securely, cost efficiently, and with the robust foundation it needs to regularly roll out new features to a growing system of devices. The company expects to eventually support millions of connected air purifiers around the world.

Blueair also plans to use artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities on AWS to unlock new, innovative potential. “We’ve always been a premium brand,” says Alvenberg. “On AWS, we can deliver premium digitally connected experiences as well.”