The idea seems crazy: iBreather purifies air as you walk, work, sit in traffic or do anything else in your life, allowing you to intake clean air wherever you are.

It’s a tiny, USB stick-sized device that can sit on your desk at work, the dinner table, your car dashboard or even on your picnic mat while enjoying a day out with the family, gently purifying the air to make it safer for you to breathe.

Using two base modules, iBreathe purifies and tracks the levels of pollutants simultaneously. It works by neutralising charge atoms with negative ions that it distributes in the air. These neutralise the positively charged atoms commonly found in allergens, viruses, bacteria, dust and smoke to create completely pure air.

As iBreathe also tracks the air quality around you, it measures whether it needs to be purified. If it doesn’t, it’ll go to sleep, meaning it’ll be charged and ready to use if the air becomes polluted again.

You can charge it using a standard microUSB connector, via a dock station or in your car with a cigarette lighter charger that ships with the device, so you can always make sure it’s charged.

Everything is controlled via a smartphone or Apple Watch app, which will feed back the quality of the air to you in real time. Both the app and the iBreathe unit itself will update automatically when the company releases an update, meaning you’ll get the latest version of software as soon as it’s available.

iBreathe has so far raised almost $35,000 (£23,000) on Indiegogo, which is 225 per cent above its target. There’s still 22 days to get your hands on an iBreathe, costing from $79 (£52) for early birds or $99 (£65) thereafter.

The company said it’s gong to use the funds raised to put the device into production, which it expects will ship in February next year.