This Free Widget for IPhone and Mac Tracks Air Quality in Your Area
I’ve lived in Oregon for ten years, which means I’ve lived through several wildfire seasons. In these conditions, you quickly learn that monitoring your air quality is very important: prolonged exposure to poor quality air can have all sorts of negative effects on your health, so it’s not a good idea to spend a lot of time outside if the air is bad.
Breathable is a new free app from Portland app development agency Karbon that adds an Air Quality Index (AQI) widget to your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Install the app and then add the widget to your device to passively learn about air quality every time you pick up your phone. (Yes, you can check AQI in the Apple Weather app, but it doesn’t have an AQI widget.)
Although the application is free, setting it up requires some effort. To use it, you need to obtain API keys from at least one service. The good news is that the process is not long and there is very clear documentation . You will need to go to IQAir.com , register for an account, select the free plan, and then copy the API key. You can repeat this process at Airnow.gov if you live in the United States and want to access EPA information. You will then need to specify in the app settings for which location you want to receive AQI information.
However, once configured, you just need to add widgets wherever you want. Breathable offers two widgets: small and medium. You can add these widgets to your iPhone or iPad’s home screen, as an add-on to your Apple Watch, or to your Mac desktop. All of these options give you the AQI in the form of a number and a chart.
If you wish, you can customize the widget’s appearance using font, gradient, and layout. It’s not a lot of customization, but you can make it look the way you like.
You can also show the AQI using an emoji scale instead of a number – some people find this easier to understand at a glance. The default set uses faces, but you can customize the widget to use any emoji you like.
The Breathable developers say they wish this didn’t exist, and I agree. However, climate change is a reality, and tools like these can help us deal with it a little.