Plume Labs: Air Quality App

Living in the Yucatán, dust comes and goes on the Tradewinds from North Africa and I know when the dust is at high levels, even inside the house, which can be terrible at times. There is no other app in comparison to this one, that provides the accuracy needed to prepare for these dust events. I have been testing different apps, mainly weather apps, for the last couple of years, and those figures are way off- There is a huge difference, mostly showing very low AQI figures, when the air quality, obviously, is very poor.

I used to be a happy Plume app user and now all that is gone. Don’t be mislead by the high rating, which this app is riding on the basis of the old version before its redesign for the worse. It always had wildly inaccurate information, but at least the ‘North Africa-through-Asia-black-belt’ on the full World Pollution Map it displayed gave you a conversation starter at parties. Now, the UI/aesthetic look has been refreshed whereas overall UX has tanked into this being just a sales platform for their indicators without which Plume can never get to data accuracy. I worry for Plume because it’s in a “no man’s land” and so succeeding in neither direction. It needs to squarely decide: is it a data company or a hardware company? Are we its customers OR its data providers? If the latter, for such an ambitious project as distributed world pollution tracking, it needs to figure out how to get the AQ sensors into people’s hands for free: either gift them with VC or grant money, or work towards a handset standard so people’s phones include these sensors built in. If the former, it needs to rethink its hardware focus from tracking to aggregating 3rd party AQ data which remains more accurate, and maybe deliver more value like gamify things like Niantic did with indoor mapping and Pokemon Go.

Last night I forwarded the Plume AQI Alert Warning to T&M (my family in Ft Thomas, KY). Here's their reply this morning: We’ve been sneezing 🤧 I've been using Plume over two years & elated when it displayed Moderate AQI at the time I was experiencing breathing problems outdoors (I do have asthma), but not really bothered until then. I thought it was my imagination or something else but delighted when Plume validated my poor breathing. I've been using it ever since, including determining best time to garden, walk, etc. I am extremely pleased with Plume & have highly recommend it to family & friends, especially with asthma & allergies. Sadly my asthma Speciliast wasn't aware or interested in Plume when I tried describing how helpful it has been last couple of years. I'm taking him Report printouts & info on my next visit as I believe they should be telling their patients about it, instead of others way around. I treasure this app. I do have one request please. I can no longer bring up world view, (moving the map around), viewing varying degrees of AQI,especially in Middle East which had very poor AQI. Behold sat Israel with abundance of fresh air! Can you please bring back World View? Thank you for this amazing air app.