Called Xupermask and made of silicone with athletic mesh fabric on the sides, it comes with three dual-speed fans, a filtration system, as well as noise-cancelling headphones, LED lights for nighttime, a rechargeable battery and bluetooth capability
An undated handout photo, artist Will.i.am in the Xupermask, made by Honeywell. After the surgical mask and the do-it-yourself mask and the fashion mask: the smart mask.
Image: via The New York Times
The story begins with Marc Benioff, CEO of cloud computing company Salesforce, watching the MTV Video Music Awards last summer.
To be specific, he was watching Will.i.am, the rapper, entrepreneur and founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, cavorting around wearing what appeared to be a cross between a gas mask and an alien space helmet. So he called Will.i.am, whose full name is William Adams and who has been a regular at Salesforce’s Dreamforce tech conference since 2010, and asked what in the world he had on his face.
Will.i.am said it was an idea he had been noodling. So Benioff told Will.i.am that he really ought to talk to Darius Adamczyk, CEO of Honeywell, the multinational conglomerate that happened to be responsible for making millions of N95 face masks over the last year. Benioff made the introduction, and Thursday the results of that conversation reached the market.
After the surgical mask and the do-it-yourself mask and the fashion mask: the smart mask.
“It’s a new category,” said Will Lange, Honeywell’s chief commercial officer for personal protective equipment.
Called Xupermask and made of silicone with athletic mesh fabric on the sides, it is a joint venture between Will.i.am and Honeywell. It fits snugly around the bottom half of the face and comes with three dual-speed fans, a Honeywell HEPA filtration system (which the company is careful to say is not medical-quality), as well as noise-canceling headphones, LED lights for nighttime, a rechargeable battery and Bluetooth capability. It allows you to play music and take calls, has a seal over the nose to keep glasses from fogging and makes the wearer look sort of like a sci-fi rhino warrior.
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