Maybe a year ago, asking if you had a healthy home would have seemed to be a strange question. Outside of some specific cities or areas, few people have cared about their air and water quality. Now we get asked every day if there is any way to test, monitor, and improve the environment we live in.

On the BRAVAS Podcast­, we talked to Anthony Antolino, the Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Delos, about that very subject. You can watch that podcast on   or subscribe to our video podcasts here.

Who is Delos?

Delos describes itself as a company "committed to enhancing health and well-being in the spaces where we live, work, sleep and play through standards, programs, and solutions designed to promote wellness, stress resilience, performance, restfulness, and joy."

This means that they have used research into wellness and health to define the science and then the products to improve the environments we live in. Through years of research and evidenced-based innovations designed to enhance physical, mental, and social well-being, and through committed investment, they plan to foster improved health outcomes in an increasingly conscious world.

Specifically, they look at air, lighting, water, and other areas of comfort. Their solutions integrate with some of our existing Control Platform partners, including Crestron, Savant, Lutron, and Control4 - although support may be different for each platform.

At BRAVAS, we have talked about human-centric lighting before, and there are a couple of great podcasts from our partner at USAi and Ketra to check out. We have also talked about the effects of clutter on your health. In this blog, we would like to spend a little time on air and water quality and what you can do to monitor and improve it in your home.

Air Quality

We spend more than 90% of our time indoors, and more than 100,000 Americans each year die of heart attacks, strokes, and other illnesses caused by air pollution. That means that getting the quality and quantity of air in your indoor spaces right is essential. Achieving this requires three key steps - installing sensors to measure and monitor the air, installing high-quality filters that remove odors and pollutants, and using particle filtration systems.

Where and how you live makes a dramatic difference to your air quality. So does the design of your air quality management systems. Getting these designs right the first time is essential before you started building your home.

The right monitoring systems allow you to compare your indoor air quality to the air outside and lets you know when it’s safe to open the windows and let the outside in. A sound system will also help you understand pollutants and the harm they can cause to cultivate a healthy lifestyle.

The right filtration systems can remove odors, pollutants, dust, pollen, mold spores, smoke, and other respiratory threats from indoor air. Individual rooms or whole-home solutions are available. BRAVAS and Delos can offer a three-stage filtration process that includes a pre-filter, HEPA/MERV 16 filter and a high capacity activated carbon filter.

Water Quality

We are aware of the health risks related to water contaminated with organic and inorganic matter, other bacteria and viruses, and other pollutants. Yet water quality monitoring is more complicated than monitoring air quality and is more than just having a filter in your fridge. To ensure a clean water supply, a series of filters can remove heavy metals. Removing other chemicals found in water can significantly improve its color and taste.

Like air quality, water quality needs to be designed into your home.  Working with BRAVAS from the start can make sure no design or building decisions are made that will impact your ability to have the cleanest water possible.

Water quality should be about 'setting it and forgetting it' until the system reminds you to change your filters. Options are available for individual faucets or whole-home solutions, but you need the right technology to manage your operations and automate your approach.

Each of us uses 80-100 gallons of water per day at home. Having the right capacity systems managing your water quality is essential to their proper use. The DARWIN Water Filtration System uses best-in-class filtration technologies to improve water quality throughout your home.

Where do you start

The first thing you need to do is monitor and measure what's going on in your home. BRAVAS working with Delos can help you do that. The DARWIN Home Wellness Intelligence from Delos seamlessly integrates its monitoring tools into your home and Home Automation platform. This approach allows you to connect air handling and lighting systems to optimize your living environment. While it is possible to monitor and report water coming into your house, the tools used to improve the quality are often less easy to combine with your home automation platform. If you have purification or water handling systems in place, you want to know if they are working and being productive.

At BRAVAS, we know a healthy home is a happy home, and we would love to walk you through what our partners and we can do to help.