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Air quality reporting on iOS

intergalactic.systems

1–10 of 101 posts

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#2
Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it.

What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#3

Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it. What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

And the image shows that the scale is named differently.

So very likely tied to the most common national air quality scale.

So it's explicit in what it shows.

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#5

Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it. What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

Aren't these countries both in the EU? I'd expect an EU-wide scale.

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#6

Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it. What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

I use US AQI, and hadn't really realized that many countries have their own measurement. I also usually look at µg/m3 of PM2.5, which is a universal standard, but of course doesn't tell the whole story of air quality.

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#7
I mean tech is full of conflicting standards. (see relevant xkcd...)

In this particular case the actual values just happen to land on the edge of two colours in the scales with very different connotations - orange vs green.

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#8
post #5

Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it. What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

Aren't these countries both in the EU? I'd expect an EU-wide scale.

You are correct they should both be using the Common Air Quality Index (CAQI). There is a new standard the EAQI and perhaps Germany has already switched to that standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quality_index

Re: Air quality reporting on iOS

#10

Interesting. This seems like the reasonable way to do it. What global scale would you pick otherwise? And would it be sensitive enough to show gradients in the least/most polluted countries and cities or would it just fill them in with one color?

I think the problem is that the colors have different meaning. The values in the screenshot for Amsterdam using the NL scale translates to 'insufficient' and while the DE scale translates to 'good' for the same city at the same time.

At the very least, it means that a user cannot use these scales for inference without knowing/understanding the technology behind them. This is probably not the intention behind showing an air quality indicator in the iOS app.

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