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Why It’s So Confusing to Determine Air Quality in Los Angeles Right Now

Wired
Summary
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86% Informative

After the blazes first ignited last week , residents began noticing that air quality data sometimes contradicted the figures displayed by Apple ’s Weather app, the wildfire tracking app Watch Duty , and other tools.

Different apps and websites employ different formulas to transform raw readings into digestible estimates of how toxic conditions are currently and how they might change later.

In countries with insufficient government monitoring, startups are filling an important void.

BreezoMeter and Ambee were founded by people worried about their families’ exposure to harmful air particles at home in Israel and India .

As demand for air quality data blooms, researchers are racing to improve the output of low-cost sensors and advocating for different kinds of monitoring gear.