Birdie: The CO2 Monitor That Doesn't Look Like One

BrandsWalk Creative |
The Copenhagen-based brand Birdie, launched in 2022 with a single product: a wall-mounted CO2 monitor shaped like a canary. When the CO2 level in a room exceeds 1,000 ppm, the bird physically droops on its perch. Once windows are opened and the air clears, it stands back up. No app, no display, no sound. The reference is the canary in the coal mine, a practice dating to around 1911, when miners brought live birds underground to detect toxic gases. If the bird fainted, it was time to leave

Birdie co-founders Andreas Sorensen and Hans Austinborg applied that same logic to the modern home. The product is made from 70% post-consumer recycled plastic and uses a Swiss-made CO2 sensor by Sensirion. It runs on a rechargeable battery lasting up to eight months per charge.

The original Kickstarter campaign raised over DKK 3.2 million from 3,299 backers. The brand now has more than 70,000 units in homes across more than 70 countries. In 2026, Birdie 2.0 received the iF Design Award Gold in the Household Appliances category. The jury described it as "a digital solution in an analog packaging."

Birdie 2.0

The 2.0 update kept the exterior identical to the original. Internally, it added tracking for temperature, humidity, mold risk, outside air quality, and pollen, all accessible via a companion app. The design decision to keep the physical object unchanged was deliberate: the additional data lives in the app so the object itself stays simple.

Image | Birdie® Design

The product comes in several colorways, including a Wood Edition crafted from solid oak, available in both oak and walnut finishes.

Birdie Podium

At 3 Days of Design 2026, Birdie debuted its second product: the Birdie Podium. It is an air purifier built inside a wooden pedestal. From the front, it reads as a piece of furniture. The filtration components (a fan, a HEPA filter, and an active coal filter) are positioned at the back of the unit, out of view. The same design logic applies as with the original Birdie: the function is present and real, but the object does not announce it.

The Birdie Podium is positioned as the natural extension of the brand's product range, moving from monitoring air quality to actively improving it.

Birdie is a brand that started with one very specific problem and one very specific answer. Four years and 70,000 units later, that specificity is still what makes it recognizable.

MORE ARTICLES

Ilkwang Lighting, a.k.a. ILKW was founded in 1962 in Daegu, South Korea. For decades, the company...
Copenhagen, June 10–12, 2026 The 13th edition of 3 Days of Design brought over 572 exhibitions...
The ORIGAMI Dripper body is folded into 18 radial pleats that fan outward from a single...
We spend a lot of time thinking about the objects in a room. The lamp that...
There is a statement that has guided IKEA since its founding, written by Ingvar Kamprad and...