"Share your data with IQAir" not working, maybe others

[dbatting]

Greetings!

I noticed that, despite my AirGradient ONE being set up and pushing data to Home Assistant, I do not see my station on the AirGradient Map at all.

My observation: here is how the data is or isn’t being pushed to 3rd parties:

• AirGradient Map doesn’t have my device listed at all.
• OpenAQ works and has been reporting flawlessly.
• IQAir not working at all. Device not listed.

For what it’s worth, I contacted Support at The World Air Quality Index (waqi.info / aqicn.org) to see how I could get my data fed into their system. I sent them the OpenAQ page for my device, and also my EcoWitt weather station info at Weather Underground, and they incorporated both into my station profile at aqicn.org, so that might be a good collaboration for future data sharing.

@Achim_AirGradient feel free to ping me directly if you’re interested in contact information for the Support person I spoke with who got everything integrated into their system. They claimed they are currently working on an integration for AirGradient, but it might not hurt to reach out directly to speed things along since we now know it can easily be done.

Thanks!

[Achim_AirGradient]

@dbatting

Yes interested for WAQI and looking into the missing data.

Please send a message to me from:
https://www.airgradient.com/support/

Then mention my name so that the ticket gets assigned to me.

[Guilherme]

Hello,

IQAir not working at all. Device not listed.

Does IQAir have an integration for AirGradient devices? Today I was looking into that, but couldn’t find it listed: IQAir | First in Air Quality

[Achim_AirGradient]

Yes we have an integration with IQAir as we have with Open AQ. When you set a monitor public you can select the 3rd parties you want to share your data with.

[Chris_C]

I also setup an Airgradient outdoor sensor and have enabled reporting to third parties and IQAir is also not working for me (the others do though).

Edit - 24 hours have passed since I registered my outdoor sensor and now I can see it on the IQAir map. I guess they wait for at least this period to enable a third party sensor on their platform.

[Yehor_AirGradient]

Hello @Chris_C !
Thank you for sharing your air quality data with others!
Yes, there is a slight delay before IQAir shows the outdoor sensor information on the map.
I’m glad to hear that everything is working as expected!

[Guilherme]

Hi all,

In my case it’s been since Wednesday last week that I opted in to share data, but IQAir map still doesn’t show my monitor on the map. But maybe it’s still within the expected delay for them to add it?

And on a related note, I’ve noticed something weird with AQICN Namely that I was first able to see the monitor on their map, and even got the link and shared with my wife: https://aqicn.org/station/@502753/

But on the past few days, the link reports that my station cannot be found. Although I could still see it in other sources (AG map and OpenAQ).

Yesterday I was checking all possible settings in the AG app, and surprisingly found following specific check boxes:

I don’t know why the last one was unchecked, as I haven’t interacted with that. When registering my monitor for the first time, I simply opted in for all.

What could have happened in the meantime to disable the data sharing with AQICN? Could it be some app update that included those options and had the last one unchecked by default?

Btw, yesterday then I checked that box again but the station is still off.

[Yehor_AirGradient]

Hi @Guilherme !

We’ll check this and get back to you!

[Guilherme]

Thanks, as a brief update, I’m still unable to see my data in both IQAir and AQCIN maps.

[Guilherme]

Hello @Yehor_AirGradient , have you been able to check if AirGradient is sharing my data with IQAir and AQICN?

We are in a historical wildfire season in Brazil, and there are media outlets using IQAir map to evaluate coverage of monitoring tools in the whole country.

Today, one released a statement that my region has none, because indeed no monitor is shown on IQAir map here.

I wonder if the AG monitor was correctly displayed on the map, they could have written a completely different story about it, e.g. about the importance of citizen scientists with low cost monitors - including AirGradient. (I’m still trying to reach out to them to clarify and share the AG map, but it’s not so easy to reach, unfortunately).

But that’s the main reason why I’m trying to get this sorted out. Looking forward to your response.

[Yehor_AirGradient]

Hello @Guilherme !

I guess it should appear soon on IQAir, as it takes some time on their end to actually place your location on the map.

*Regarding AQICN, we are still figuring this out. Sorry for the delay—I’ll let you know as soon as we have it sorted.

[Achim_AirGradient]

IQAir also does some validations on their end and sometimes do not display monitors e.g. if they are very close to another one.

I would suggest you contact them directly at support.ch@iqair.com and ask them about your particular monitor.

[Guilherme]

Thanks for the suggestion@Achim_AirGradient , I did have open tickets with both IQAir and AQICN a few days ago, but none of them were able to be solved so far unfortunately.

Also, I wanted to report that I’ve just noticed unexpected gaps in my data on the OpenAQ map, whereas this is not observed in the AirGradient map:

Last 24h OpenAQ:

Last 24h AG:

Btw, I did the sanity check on other station on OpenAQ and they did not present similar gap as mine.

Would have been any issue in the communication from AG server to OpenAQ (and maybe other maps as well)? I wonder whether this could be related to the issues I m facing with the others not showing my station.

[Achim_AirGradient]

I noticed these gaps too. They are happening on OpenAQ side.

[Guilherme]

@Achim_AirGradient

IQAir also does some validations on their end

This is a good point and may be a potential reason why they have not included the monitor yet.

While around my region there is no other monitor, IQAir does have their own model based on satellite imagery to estimate PM and US AQI.

If I check those estimated values, they are approximately in line with the corrected PM2.5 I found on the AG map.

However, as I noticed on the OpenAQ map, the corrected values are not the ones been streamed, but rather the raw ones. So I believe these would also be the ones IQAir would receive?

If that’s the case, they may have observed overestimated values for PM and AQI in comparison to their own - I believe the raw values in my region right now (120u/m3) could represent AQI close to 200, whereas the corrected values are 90u/m3 and 169, respectively, and their model estimates an AQi of 168.

Maybe under normal conditions of low AQI values, the observed differences wouldn’t be an issue. But in our wildfire case, in which cities in Brazil were ranked to have the worst quality in the world this week (by IQAir itself), then such discrepancy may play a bigger role if included.

But what I don’t understand: why does AG (apparently) stream the uncorrected values to other maps, as we are aware these to be overestimated, and therefore could lead to both misunderstanding from readers as well as failing validation with other stations / satellite models?

For example, if I compare PurpleAir monitors in Brazil on IQAir map, they do seem to present very consistent values with those I found on PurpleAir map for EPA corrected AQI, thus leading to believe they stream corrected values too.

Would it be possible for AG to stream the corrected PM2.5 values from AG to IQAir (and other maps) too?

[Achim_AirGradient]

When we implemented the integration with IQAir, IQAir informed us that they would like to do the compensation on their end. This is why they take the raw values from us.

Currently the corrected values are not part of our API but the conversion is done in the browser or map. We might change that in future and integrate it into the API.

[Guilherme]

Hum, but I don’t think that’s what happens in reality. If I open AirGradient profile on IQAir and pick a random station, I find consistent values with the corresponding station on AirGradient map for uncorrected selection.

For example the AirGradient station in Lima, Peru - see the current raw PM and corrected US AQI values on the AG interface below:

Now let’s look at the same station now using IQAir interface:

You can see that the uncorrected PM values are consistent across maps, whereas the US AQI value then shows considerably larger on the IQAir interface (as on AG map it’s corrected).

Also, one can see how the AG station stands out compared to all other stations shown for Lima on the map as being an outlier in terms of estimated values.

I’d suggest to investigate this further with IQAir. I think it might pose a reliability doubt from viewers that are able to compare AirGradient values with surrounding monitors (reference, PurpleAir, etc) on the IQAir map.

[Achim_AirGradient]

Good point. Something seems off. I will double check this with IQ Air.

[Guilherme]

Hello @Achim_AirGradient and @Yehor_AirGradient , I would like to let you know that IQAir responded they have just finished adding all AirGradient stations they had on their backlog. But mine was none of those - I still can’t see my data on their map. I still wonder whether the issue with AQICN (where I can’t find my station is either) would be related here.

I noticed this app option to select individual third parties to which we share the data has been recently added on a newer version of the app, is that correct? Is there any API request I myself could make directly to try to enforce my opt in choice to share data? I couldn’t find anything on it.

[Achim_AirGradient]

I am in touch with IQ Air on this. It seems our end point is working as expected and something is going on on their side.
I will let you know once I know it’s working again.