@posburn I use the PurpleAir, and I shared your announcement with a PurpleAir users group on Facebook. Unfortunately, because I don’t have a Tidbyt (yet), I can’t see what your app looks like, which also means I can’t share images with anyone. The Tidbyt app seems to require pairing with a device before it will show any apps for the device. Can you share some photos of your Tidbyt showing PurpleAir data and whatnot? If the app is noteworthy, maybe that also?
Thanks for your post @ejm554 and for sharing on the PurpleAir users group! It turns out Tidbyt has an Apps page you can view in your browser (no Tidbyt required). Click ‘Live’ at the top and then search for PurpleAir and you’ll see a small animated preview of the app. There is a larger, static preview here.
You’re welcome. Thanks for building it. Now I just need to find a way to acquire one of these Tidbyts!
For those who haven’t seen the preview, I’m including a copy in this message.
is purple drawing from the same data as the EPA stations? https://aqs.epa.gov/aqsweb/documents/data_api.html
It’s not. The PurpleAir app pulls data from the PurpleAir APIs. You can take a look at purpleair.com for more info.
seems the PurpleAir app isn’t working correctly. it now wants both the API Key and the Sensor ID. How do I get the API key from the map?
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I have the same question. the PurpleAir app stopped working yesterday. I would love to see a fix.
Thank you.
@robbo980 @whoster - purpleair charges for API calls (they give you a bunch for free) - but the original dev was getting charged for the folks that were using the app. So the decision was made to require users to get their own API key for it. go here: PurpleAir Develop create an account. Create an organization, create a project & create a READ key. Then you’ll have a key to enter. The PurpleAir folks don’t have the greatest doc on how to do it, but here’s a link to the “getting started” page they have, Making API Calls with the PurpleAir API - API - PurpleAir Community
Well, hrm.
Currently all i see is a message “Specify a sensor and API key.” OK…
- got a key from PurpleAir, (big old UUID which is a secret)
- located the sensor ID from PurpleAir’s map (178415)
- reinstalled the Tidbyt app
- did a factory reset, just for fun.
(I appreciate the great app. Just looking for a sanity check!)
Chris
make sure you’ve allocated points to your project from your organization. it’s not apparent that you have to do this (purpleair has stated they are working on this to make it easier). But go into your project & do an edit. if your current project points is 0 - you can’t make any calls.
it should look something like this.
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Thank you for the information joevivona. I still seem to be having problems somewhere. I set up a PurpleAir account along with a project and I allocated points to it. I then put in the key and it showed up on my phone in the Tidbyt app just fine, but after rebooting my Tidbyt it still says, "Specify a sensor and API key (which I think I have done both).
Did you specify a sensor number? If you click on the specific sensor you want to display on the map at map.purpleair.com, you should see a URL that has something like ‘select=123456#’ as part of it - that number is the sensor number. It should be the same as you see in the embedded code in the ‘Get This Widget’ link in Air Quality (Purple Air) - #7 by posburn
@whoster - DM me your key & your sensor ID & I’ll test your sensor ID out with my key - if that works, then I’ll try your key.
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I think I did all of that.
joevivona, I will send you that info. Thank you!
Took a few minutes, but after allocating points to my purple API project, my AQI came back on my tidbyt displays. Thanks for the info and the app!
How does the point allocation work? I allocated a few points (maybe 6) and it worked for a few hours). Am I going to run out of points?
- You get 1 million points for free. Unless you are planning to have multiple API keys, there is no reason not to allocate all 1,000,000 to your Tidbyt.
- Each ‘get’ call takes roughly one point; thus, why you run out after a few hours.
- $10 will get you an additional 1 million points, if you ever do manage to run out and need more.
- PurpleAir has more details on the points system on their website
Thanks, lucienve. I figured it was something like that.
Also, thank you joevivona for your help.
we did the math over on Discord… Assuming you are only monitoring 1 sensor & only via the Tidbyt. Each call using your key uses 11 points. A million free points should last you 5 years. Also if you are the owner of a device & you start to run out of points - you can reach out to PurpleAir and they will give you some more for free (I don’t know how many and I don’t know that it’s an official policy). Just to help out with their server costs, I sent them $51 (because their points per dollar changes over $50) and I got something like 7 million points - so I’m covered for 35 years with the 1 unit I have.
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