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BUTTERFLY AIR

Indoor air quality, reimagined
IoT start-up, UK

Case study / 04

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(Overview)

An air quality monitor you actually want on your wall.

Most air quality monitors are grey boxes nobody looks at. Butterfly took a different route. Its sensors were patented, tested and developed with Imperial College London, then housed in a butterfly whose wings glow blue, green or amber as the air in the room changes.

I worked alongside the founders and Nick Munro Design to take Butterfly from brilliant product to business. That covered the go-to-market plan, marketing strategy, the IoT architecture behind the devices, and the tools the sales team used to win pilots in schools, offices, homes and hotels.

Client
Butterfly Air
My role
Go-to-market, marketing strategy, IoT architecture, sales enablement
Sector
IoT, climate & health tech
In partnership with
Nick Munro Design
Developed with
Imperial College London & IWBI
Live site
butterfly-air.com ↗
Morpho with its wings glowing blue for good air
Morpho with its wings unlit
01

Understand at a glance

Colour communicates faster than numbers. The gloWING interface turns the wings blue when the air is good, green when it's moderate and amber when it needs attention. Anyone in the room can read it without an app. The data is still there for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

(The range)

Morpho device with glowing blue wings

Morpho

The flagship. Named after the butterfly with striking blue wings, with the full gloWING interface.

Antenna device with an e-ink CO₂ reading

Antenna

Discreet and data-led, with a real-time e-ink display. Named after the way butterflies sense chemicals.

Sapho device with glowing wings

Sapho

Built for homes and classrooms, with a 12-month battery. Named after the butterfly with an excellent memory.

02

Go to market

One product, four very different buyers. We shaped the proposition and messaging for each: peace of mind for families, a magical learning tool for schools, WELL-standard evidence for workplaces, and reassurance for hospitality guests. Each audience got its own route to a trial.

  1. Sapho glowing on a living room wall

    01 Home

  2. Two pupils pointing at a Butterfly in a school corridor

    02 Education

  3. Morpho being fitted to an office column

    03 Office

  4. Morpho glowing in a hotel corridor

    04 Hospitality

“When butterflies are present, we know the air is healthy.”

Glowing blue butterflies in a dark forest
03

Infrastructure & IoT

Buildings don't want another device on their network. Chrysalis, the system's hub, gathers readings from every Butterfly in a building. It sends them to the dashboard over WiFi, Ethernet, LoRaWAN or 4G, independently of the client's own IT. From there the data feeds the app, AI-driven tips, smart-home integrations and an open API.

SensorsMorpho · Antenna · Sapho
HubChrysalis
TransportWiFi · Ethernet · LoRaWAN · 4G
PlatformDashboard · App · API
  • Carbon dioxide
  • Temperature
  • Relative humidity
  • tVOCs
  • Formaldehyde
  • Particulate matter
Butterfly app on three phones showing room air quality scores and trends
04

Built on science

Patented, tested and developed with Imperial College London and made in the UK. The LaminAIR™ Flow chamber keeps every key reading current to the international WELL v2 standard. That credibility sat at the centre of the sales story.

Engineer inspecting a Butterfly device under a magnifying lamp
Engineers testing devices in the lab
Hand placing a device on a test rig
The Butterfly team at Imperial College London
05

Designed to last

Designed with Nick Munro Design and moulded from post-consumer plastic waste in partnership with NG Nordic. Sustainability runs from product to packaging, and the plan is for future revenue to support butterfly conservation and re-wilding.

Nick Munro Design line drawings of the butterfly device
Hands holding recycled plastic pellets

(What I brought)

  1. 01

    Go-to-market

    Target sectors, pricing and packaging, and a pilot-to-rollout route for each audience.

  2. 02

    Marketing strategy

    Positioning built on nature, science and design, with the story told consistently across web, events and sales.

  3. 03

    Infrastructure & IoT

    Architecture consultancy across devices, hub connectivity, cloud platform and API.

  4. 04

    Sales enablement

    Decks, demos and trial playbooks that let the team sell a new category with confidence.

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