The pollution levels are rising day by day. It has become impossible to breathe in fresh air due to alarming pollution levels in urban areas. According to a recent survey by the WHO (World Health Organisation), more than eighty percent of the urban population does not have access to clear air throughout the world. It has become an alarming situation for the households residing in the cities. The situation is even worse in developing nations like China and India. It has become quite challenging to find optimal air quality to perform physical activities in the open air. The Air Quality monitoring apps can help schedule your activities and to have minimal effect on your health.
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The increasing pollution has ill-effects on the majority of the population, but it has worse effects on the children and old age citizens. The pollution in developing nations mainly consists of pollutants like particulate matter, including PM 2.5 and PM 10. Whereas, the sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide are primary pollutants in the developed nations. The pollution is having a short term and long term effects on the citizens.
Short and long term effects on health
- Difficulty in breathing
- Chest Pain
- Sore throat
- Nasal congestion
- Cancer
- Lung tissue damage
- Asthma
There are some prescribed permissible limits for different pollutants. However, these limits are set according to their local environmental conditions. The PM 2.5 pollutant value is set to 10UG/M3, PM10 at 20UG/M3, O3 at 100UG/M3, NO2 at 40UG/M3, and SO2 at 20UG/M3.
We have crafted a list of apps that will allow the users to keep a tab on the pollution levels in their surroundings. The apps will not only provide information about the pollution level of your city, but it will also showcase the air quality of other cities. The list includes apps for both the iOS and Android platforms.
List of best Air Quality monitoring Apps
AirVisual
It is the key service in measuring, maintaining, and monitoring the air pollutants at the city level. The app has vast support across cities throughout the world. Along with the app, the AirVisual also supply air monitoring machines for users at reasonable prices. Airvisual has several data-collecting stations. Each device sold by Airvisual, in turn, acts as a data collection center.
AirVisual fetches the pollution data from the nearest center upon a successful selection of the current location. However, there’s also an option to enter the location of your choice manually. The user can get information about different pollutants along with the overall AQI of the location. AirVisual also extracts pollution information from government websites to maintain accurate data. It also brings historical data to great use by beautifully depicting it using graphs.
There’s even a graphical map to see the worldwide pollution status via a globe. It also features some weather information along with the AQI data.
The app might need location permissions to set the current location. AirVisual is available both on Android and iOS platforms
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Breezometer
The users can stay away from lousy air by merely installing the Breezometer. The app can send you custom alerts for air quality, weather, and fire alerts. The make productive use of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to calculate real-time air quality accurately where the air quality monitoring is not possible.
It is a personalized assistant to protect our families, friends from the bad air, and other toxic elements in the air. It helps to recognize the best time to perform outdoor activities with minimal or no impact on our health. Breezometer is available in more than 92 countries with a detailed analysis of your air quality.
Breezometer is known for real-time air quality maps, fire alerts, and daily information for multiple pollens from weed, trees, and grass. Apart from air quality information, the app also brings weather forecasts to plan accordingly. The user can personalize the health recommendations like what’s the best exercise route, aids in trip planning, or when to play in the outdoor. The beautiful UI brings native experience for parents and teenagers. It’s a solution for athletes, cyclists, runners, and other outdoor sports activities.
Breezometer has more than 7000 official air quality monitoring stations worldwide.
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Plume Labs Air Quality
The sleek interface of the Plume attracts a lot of users. It helps to answer potential questions like, “What’s air quality like today? Is it the best time to go for a run? When should I go for a walk in the park with my children?” It offers full coverage of all the major cities and towns around the world. Hour by Hour forecast of the Air Quality makes Plume stand against other competitors.
Plume’s environmental AI helps to recommend the best time to go out of your home and do favorite outdoor activities without getting exposed to pollution. Around 70% of users are surveyed to have breathed cleaner air after using the Plume App. It supports the data availability of every location throughout the globe. Thanks to 18 months of rigorous hard work by developers and scientists to build a worldwide air quality forecasting model in Plume.
The users can add up different cities automatically and manually. Fluid Timeline depicts all the historical data in a well-crafted User Interface. It’s a favorite app if you care about your health.
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Sh**t! I Smoke
A creative idea to convert the Air Quality Index into the number of cigarettes consumed. It hides the real pollutant levels and shows the cigarette equivalent of the air you breathe. The Sh**t!I Smoke will give you the number of cigarettes you consumed within a day, week, and month.
However, interested users can also see the pollutant level under the “See More Details” option. The app calculates cigarette consumption based on Berkeley Earth’s findings of 1 cigarette that is equivalent to 22 micrograms per m3. The popular app is featured on several big media houses due to its unique approach to the Air Quality Index.
The user can share the cigarette consumption from within the app. It can help raise awareness about Air Pollution.
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Air Matters
A beautiful and clean UI welcomes the users on the AirMatters app. It broadcasts real-time air quality for more than 180 countries. It shows the air quality index neatly by acquiring data from the nearest monitoring station. Along with the air quality information, the app informs about weather and pollen data in the US & Europe.
Surprsingly, the AirMatters also connects with Philips Smart Air Purifier and Laser Egg for realtime indoor air quality. The users can also control the purifier from anywhere using the AirMatters app.
The free version of the app is ad-supported. However, the Air Matters Premium is available for $0.99 per year.
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Sameer
(CPCB India)
Sameer is an official app by the Indian board of Pollution Control. It provides hourly updates for all cities and small towns across the country. It is a useful tool for accurate air quality information across India. The app features official data from the CPCB observatories on an hourly basis.
The interactive map layout brings the air quality information on a single map with the appropriate color, AQI number across all the cities. The natives of India can also register complaints related to air pollution from within the app.
The app currently lacks beautiful User Interface as of the above apps, but still, it conveys the right numbers to users.
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We expect the Governments should take appropriate measures to make sure everyone breathes fresh and clean air. Otherwise, the days of buying clean air are not far away. These are some best apps to check Air Quality in your city. If you have any recommendations for air quality monitoring apps, then make sure to let us know via the comments below.
