Back to Smartcitizen.me

Integration with OpenAQ

Data
#1

Good day, is it possible to integrate the SmartCitizen data into OpenAQ?, as it is a unified open data platform used for research purposes. That way we could integrate several projects that have open data on air quality into one to increase scientific research, for example Airgradient includes it as an option in its devices.

s

#2

Hi @juanda097

This is certainly something that is getting more attention, but we do not have a checkbox as the one in Airgradient. However, we have been reached out by various other data aggregators as well.

What we have done at the moment is add the possibility for certain user roles to forward their data via MQTT, so that people can subscribe to it via if authorized by the user. This is already developed, but we do not do it on a generalized way due to limited resources.

I wonder how OpenAQ decides how to integrate data, and what initiatives or platforms to accept/include, and what is the criteria on specific devices.

On our end, the connection would need to happen at two levels:

  • technically: decide what is the best way for other platforms to have access to this data. Currently, we do it real-time via MQTT only, to be avoid many GET HTTP requests to our API. We do not actively send data to other platforms by making POST requests at the moment, as it would require development effort that we cannot afford.
  • user-decision: following the approach by Air Gradient, which seems to be the only fair one. This means that external platforms performing GET requests to integrate data somewhere else is not the way to go.