Air quality readings in cumulusmx database

[Defenderdogs]

Sorry to resurrect this slightly old thread, but on this topic is it possible to graph the air quality readings against the chosen Index? My (Airlink) sensor data is being collected and can be seen in Recent Charts, but (and maybe I am just being dense) I can't see a way to include the index. Is it that this data isn't stored?

[watsonm]

There isn't a column allocated in the database for AQI. You may have to convince Mark that it is worth adding

[HansR]

Adding the AQI requires knowing about the locale (or some parameter defining the country you wish to use) because it is dependent on which country you are in. AQI is not as simple as it seems.
See my post on this subject.

And of course it is up to Mark to decide what he does.

[Mapantz]

Adding the AQI requires knowing about the locale (or some parameter defining the country you wish to use) because it is dependent on which country you are in. AQI is not as simple as it seems.

Why would it?

The values being added in to a database have nothing to do with what country you're in?!

[SamiS]

Why would it?

The values being added in to a database have nothing to do with what country you're in?!

I think this can be seen both ways. Yes, Air Quality Index is basically just a number that could be stored on database (or at least I can’t figure out why not).

The problem is that the number itself does not tell anything if you do not know which country standard has been used to calculate it. As Hans wrote on the linked post, US AQI has scale from 1 to 500, British has scale from 1 to 10 and EU has two different specifications with scales from 1 to 5 and 1 to 100. And of course Australians have scale of 1 to 200. On the other hand, if you have access to cmx database, you probably should anyway know what standard is used, so it is still useful without any metadata.

[HansR]

@Mapantz: exactly as @SamiS wrote.

The problem I see with the AQI is that it is not objective. It is a value according to some countries standard and studying that AQI shows it is pretty manipulative. As if the countries institutes know what health related to particulate matter is.

And because my last discussion with beteljuice was about lung related health - he died of failing lungs and knew what he was talking about - i will kind of dedicate this subject to him. As a human being you better know which concentration - which is the only objective measurement we do - is bad for your health than worry about the AQI which is a nonsense quantity. A value in a database does not make it a good or relevant value.

And yes, this is an opinion on interpretation of particulate matter.

[Mapantz]

My point was, the values can be added to a database as is. What you do with them after is up to you..