Google Search now displays detailed air quality information in the US
Google already helps us “breathe easy” by organizing our e-mail, or keeping on top of our appointments, but recently the company’s been working toliterallymake it easier for us to access information about local air quality. Last year, it pushed an update to its Nest Hubs toprominently display your local AQI(Air Quality Index). Now that info’s becoming available in even more places, as Google Search also starts showing city-level air quality information.
Googling “air quality” or “air pollution” will display a card that breaks down the AQI nearby, as spotted by9to5Google. Data is provided byairnow.govandPurpleAirin the US, which joins India, and now Australia, with access to the card. you could manually specify a location while searching, or click “Choose area” to display a list of nearby air quality stations. Underneath the map you’ll get a breakdown of stations that can be expanded to show detailed information, and toggling “Include air sensors” will populate the map with pins for all local AQI sensors.
The map interface is fairly basic, since you cannot move around or zoom in and out, which can make examining individual air sensors difficult — unlike the stations, there isn’t extra info for all these, and Google warns that “sensor data may have unknown performance and inaccuracies”. The card works on mobile and desktop browsers alike, along with the Google Search app.
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