Tokyo-based weather forecasting company Weathernews, is deploying a 200-strong army of spherical-shaped robots nationwide to monitor the pollen-level as the hay-fever season approaches.

These ‘Pollen Robots’ which weigh 1kg and measure 30cm across, consist of a monitoring unit housed in a spherical Styrofoam shell. A pair of eyes glow five different colours – white, blue, green, red and purple, to indicate the level of Japanese cedar and cypress pollen in the air.

Two hundred hay fever sufferers around the country have volunteered to hang a Pollen Robot outside their homes, to monitor the air. Minute-by-minute reports will be sent over the internet to Weathernews’ Tokyo HQ, and the data used to update the company’s online pollen map.