That’s good to know joevivona. Thank you for the info!
It appears that something has broken with Posburn’s PurpleAir app for Tidbyt. I got the app to display my sensor’s AQI when I first got my Tidbyt in May. The app continued to display my sensor until this week when it reverted to the screen that says “Specify a sensor and API key” like it does after first being installed. Opening the Tidbyt app revealed that while all the other apps I have continue to retain their settings, the PurpleAir app’s settings had all been erased or forgotten.
To address the trouble, I went to PurpleAir Develop and generated a new key according to the instructions provided, grabbed my sensor ID, and then put it all into the PurpleAir app within the Tidbyt app. Yet, despite saving these settings a few hours ago, the app continues to say that I have not provided a key or ID:
My Tidbyt is a “set it and forget it” device, meaning that after I set it up I haven’t opened the Tidbyt app or fussed with the display even once. My suspicion was initially that the Tidbyt app must have clobbered the PurpleAir app’s settings after being updated, but given that no other app on my Tidbyt has been affected and the fact that entering my key and ID still doesn’t cause the app to work, I’m beginning to believe something has gone wrong with the PurpleAir app specifically. Anyone else experiencing this trouble?
UPDATE: I managed to address the trouble where my key and ID were not being recognized. The trouble was resolved by allocating points to the project associated with my key in PurpleAir Develop. What is still not explained is why I had to got through this setup process again in the first place. Might it be the case that we need to go through all these steps again each time the million points we’re allocated are exhausted?
I had mentioned this above - “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.”
also - if you are only monitoring 1 device - the million points are going to last you somewhere between 5 and 6 years. when you run out - you’ll just need to get more points (pay for them, get them for free from Purple, etc) and allocate them to the project/key. you will NOT need a new key.
Seems like something changed on January 20th with frequency the app is refreshing air quality. It used to do it once every 30 minutes it looks like and now it is doing it once every 4 and a half minutes. Is this a change with the app or with Tidbyt?