Last week I wrote about my new Tempest Weather Station (LOVE IT). It's been awesome to have exact weather conditions at my home.

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Tempest Home Weather Station

I’ve always been interested in knowing the weather forecast. To spruce up how I get the weather I adore using the award-winning Carrot Weather app for iOS. It’s an incredible app with a ton of personality and geeky data. One cool feature of Carrot Weather is that you can connect it to your own personal weather station. Carrot supports both Netatmo and T…

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2 months ago · 1 like · 3 comments · Omar Shahine

I mentioned that I was looking to get an Air Quality Sensor from a company called PurpleAir. Well, I ordered one and have now set it up right next to where my Tempest is located.

You might be wondering about Air Quality and how it is measured.

AQI stands for "Air Quality Index". It is a measure of the quality of air in a particular area, based on the concentration of pollutants that are considered harmful to human health. The AQI is calculated using a mathematical formula that takes into account the levels of various pollutants in the air, including particulate matter (such as dust and dirt), ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide.

The AQI is reported on a scale from 0 to 500. This scale is divided into different levels, with each level corresponding to a different range of AQI values. The levels are as follows:

• 0 to 50: Good

• 51 to 100: Moderate

• 101 to 150: Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

• 151 to 200: Unhealthy

• 201 to 300: Very Unhealthy

• 301 to 500: Hazardous

The level of the AQI indicates the level of air pollution in a particular area and the associated health risks. For example, an AQI of 100 or below is considered to be good and poses little or no health risks to most people. An AQI of 150 or above, on the other hand, is considered unhealthy and can cause health problems for everyone, not just sensitive groups.

PurpleAir PA-II-FLEX

I purchased it direct from PurpleAir. Setup took a few minutes followed by mounting outdoors.

You can view the map of all the sensors around you and geek out at so many different measurements.

By default, what you see on the map is the US EPA PM2.5 AQI - 10 minute - this is the standard used by the EPA averaged over 10 minutes. There are many others as well.

The US EPA PM2.5 is a measure of the concentration of fine particulate matter in the air. PM2.5 refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. These fine particles can be inhaled into the lungs and can cause a variety of health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

The US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) sets air quality standards for PM2.5 based on the levels of PM2.5 in the air. These standards are used to determine the AQI (Air Quality Index) for a particular area. The AQI is a measure of the overall air quality in an area, and it is reported on a scale from 0 to 500, with higher numbers indicating worse air quality.

I really love this thing. It was easy to set up. I simply connected the outdoor rated IP68 micro-usb cable to an outside outlet and mounted it under my roof eve.

Next, I registered it as a public sensor (now the second sensor in my neighborhood) and it’s alive!

I have found two awesome apps (iOS and macOS) for monitoring the air quality called Paku.

I love the widgets - I now have these on my Mac and iOS devices. Look at all the people in Seattle that have these sensors:

Including around the world

The Air Quality in New Delhi (where I visited a few weeks ago) is still awfully bad.

I feel truly fortunate that our Air Quality in Seattle is so healthy.

PurpleAir has an API which I have used to build an extension for RayCast (RayCast is the best launcher and search box for macOS). I hope to release it soon.

PS - this post was written with the help of the OpenAI GPT Chat Bot which is bananas amazing (all the AQI stuff that I quoted).

Buy from PurpleAir