Rw and the sound reduction index, explained
Rw is the European counterpart to STC: a single number summarising how much sound a building element blocks in a laboratory. Like STC, it is a wall rating, and like STC it gets quoted for products that are not walls.
What it measures, and how it relates to STC
Rw is the weighted sound reduction index, defined under ISO 717. Like STC it takes a laboratory measurement of an element across frequency bands and reduces it to one number. The two are close enough that people convert roughly between them, usually treating Rw as one or two points below the STC figure for the same element, though that rule of thumb breaks down at the edges.
You will see Rw on European products and STC on North American ones, and occasionally both on the same datasheet.
The same problem as STC
It is a rating for a building element tested as a panel, and a pod is not a panel. Doors, seals, joints and a ventilation path all sit outside what the number describes, and they are where sound actually gets out.
If a pod quotation leads with an Rw figure, ask what it was measured on. If the answer is the panel rather than the assembled pod, you have a real number about the wrong object, and you cannot compare it against a supplier quoting a whole-product figure.
Where FocusPod stands
Greater than 29 dB speech level reduction across the range, laboratory tested under ISO 23351-1, measured on the assembled pod with the ventilation running. The accessible model tests at 30 dB, Class A, with reverberation under 0.4 seconds. Test reports are available on request for any model you are specifying.
The rest of the terms
Every acoustic term you will meet in a pod quotation, explained the same way.