Lapka, the next big thing?

Have you heard of Lapka yet? “Lapka is a personal environment monitor that connects with your phone to measure, collect, and analyze the hidden qualities of your surroundings” (1).  It is a new innovation coming out of Russia. It looks sleek and high tech with a wooden finish. You can now measure your surroundings for yourself and not have to wait for the environmentalists to do it. “Its four sensors analyze and report on radiation, electromagnetic fields, humidity, even the level of nitrates in food” (2). Each sensor plugs into an iPhone’s headphone jack to feed its data into software that comes in a form of an Apple App. This new high tech personal gadget will cost you about $220. But is it worth it?

It has its positives and negatives. To me, I feel like a negative would be the paranoia that it will cause some people. To have the ability to actually measure the radiation in the air around you can sometimes put you in a state of worry. We don’t realize how bad the environment is around us, but having the “tools”, so to speak, to measure the levels yourself can show you the true reality of the situation. On the other hand, is it better to know and try to do something about it? Or is it better to be ignorant to the level of radiation your neighborhood has and not think too much about it? I’ve watched a documentary about radition and how bad it can effect you if you live near by a plant or something of the sort, I feel like it’s something people want to look into when moving to a new city or neighborhood. Especially if they have little children who will be outside playing and exposed to it. A positive could be that people will find out the levels of radiation on their own by using this gadget and pressure politicians to regulate more when it comes to radiation, electromagnetic fields, and such. According to the article, officials already have records of the radiation, pollution, and other levels for each city. This just gives consumers the opportunity to measure it themselves using this sensor and their iPhone. Another negative  I see in this would be maybe the loss of future jobs for some environmentalist due to this new, easy way to produce information. Technology seems to be taking over the job world and this might affect it. But at the same time I would like to argue that an educated environmentalist is a much better source than the Lapka and an iPhone.

 

Do you think this will attract consumers and be successful? Or is it another wasted gadget?

Sources:

(1) https://mylapka.com

(2) http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-18/the-good-and-scary-possibilities-of-monitoring-your-personal-space#r=nav-r-story