![]() Then people started asking for sensors they could install at home, and PurpleAir started selling air quality sensors in 2016. But a consumer market emerged, and PurpleAir pivoted to a for-profit enterprise with a mission. ![]() ![]() In the second half of 2015, Dybwad built 80 sensors and distributed them to users for free around the Salt Lake Valley for free. The initial plan was for a nonprofit air quality monitoring group. Within six months, his first sensors were ready to deploy. His prototype used an off-the-shelf breakout circuit board and PVC pipe he cut with a CNC machine in his garage for housing that would stand up to the rigors of the outdoors. "What was out there wasn't designed to survive outdoors in the environment." "The cheaper ones didn't work outdoors," adds Dybwad. The sensors on the market at the time were expensive, bulky, and lacked Wi-Fi connectivity. "I've had to use all the skills I've collected over my existence to do this," he says. To answer the question, Dybwad leveraged his background in electronics and programming to develop a better air quality sensor and launch PurpleAir. Living up on the hill, I would see the dust blowing over Bluffdale every day, and I just wondered how much dust that was." "It picks up dust from this gravel pit and spreads it north and south over the towns nearby. "The wind speeds up as it goes through that gap," he says. ![]() Wind whistling through a gap in the mountains tends to scatter dust from a large gravel pit around Dybwad's neighborhood in Draper. Otherwise, the app should be left in the default “None” position.Living near the Point of the Mountain - the range that separates Salt Lake City and Provo - can come with air quality issues. The LRAPA correction should only be used when wood smoke is the main kind of pollution in the air. To apply the conversion, change the word “None” to “LRAPA” in the map data layer box. To counter this, the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency has developed a conversion formula, which PurpleAir has built into its app. Josh Hug that because wood smoke particles are less dense (1.5 g/cm³) than typical PM 2.5 particles, the resulting AQI values spike too high. Adrian Dybwad, founder of Purple Air, explained to UC Berkeley computer science Prof. Smoke pollution requires an adjustment on the PurpleAir app for accurate readings. Xinhua News Agency/Xinhua News Agency / Getty Images 19, 2020 at the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve of San Mateo County shows the dense smoke of wildfires. She noted that AirNow sensors are very expensive, state-regulated and regularly maintained to ensure the quality of the data, which in the past has been relied upon in court rulings. Is there a bus stop near the sensor? Is it located near a kitchen? The readings will be diluted,” Chu said. “The issue is PurpleAir uses a low-cost sensor that you can’t quality-control. They differ from the sensors used by AirNow, which measure particulate matter by drawing air through a filter and then weighing the filter.Ĭhristina Chu, spokesperson for AirNow, said PurpleAir’s sensors are great for individuals who want to monitor the air their families are breathing every day in and around their homes, but not for measuring regional air quality. The sensors use a laser particle counter to measure the number of airborne particles and then employ an algorithm to calculate a mass concentration based on the count. People can put them indoors or outdoors at their discretion. PurpleAir sells its proprietary sensors to citizens and then uses the data from the monitors to track particulate pollution on a global scale. AirNow’s figures - which are based on Environmental Protection Agency standards - are calculated using a complex algorithm that “uses longer averages during periods of stable air quality and shorter averages when air quality is changing rapidly.” Results are updated hourly but delayed compared to PurpleAir. PurpleAir’s numbers are measured in real-time (averaged over the last 10 minutes). There were also three other green values from indoor sensors. But a look at the popular PurpleAir app in the general vicinity of that zip at the same time showed one sensor reporting green, or healthy air, and two in the yellow-orange (acceptable to moderate).
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