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8 September AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO

8 September AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO 

In this article you will find the answers of our CEO, Claudio Parrinello, from the AMA session on the 8th of September. 

Before answering your questions, let me first start with some announcements. 

General announcement 

● Weekly AMAs are raising a lot of interest. In order to maximise efficiency, please make sure that you submit all your questions by Monday night (CET time zone); 

● Starting from next week, we will put online forms where you can ask your questions for technical and environmental AMAs. 

● We had a problem with the ticketing system 2 weeks ago and it is now solved. Please, check the dashboard in the ticketing system, if you see no answer and your ticket is more than 2 weeks old, please open a new one

● For the Stake for the Planet initiative I hope to be able to give you a meaningful update next week. 

Compliance with the rules 

We are growing very fast. A lot is going on in the background. We might soon make some important announcements. What matters enormously to me is that we are growing organically! Nothing is fake, or inflated. I am not fake, Twitter followers are not fake, Bitfinex trading volumes are not fake. 

In connection with this, it’s important to keep air quality data REAL and valuable. For this reason, we are making a number of checks. I believe 130 emails have gone out today to request information from PlanetWatchers in relation to “strange” data patterns. There is nothing to worry about if you get an email from us, we only need you to explain the way your sensors are installed or other technical aspects. 

Let me restate and clarify one rule: we only allow one STATIC Type 4 sensor per household. For example, it is ok if you have two adults in your household that have one Atmotube PRO each and one of them works from home and the other commutes, so most of the time they collect different data. If two Atmotube PROs are both travelling, that is fine as well. If you have one AWAIR Element and one Atmotube PRO, it is fine only if the Atmotube PRO travels. 

What is not allowed by us, is having e.g. one AWAIR Element plus one Amotube PRO in the same household and keeping them fixed, even in different rooms and in the same house. 

This is not allowed because it would be hard to extract valuable air quality data from this layout. 

To be clear, let me also remind you a part of the General Terms of sale and delivery that you all subscribe to : 

“PlanetWatch reserves the right to disconnect from its network and terminate participation in its rewards program for any sensor which appears to be installed in unsuitable locations and/or operated for the sole purpose of earning rewards. Examples include: 

● Sensors meant for outdoor use which appear to be installed indoors, or vice versa; 

● More generally, all sensors which appear to be installed in unsuitable locations, e.g. in close proximity of pollution sources, in places with reduced air circulation, etc; 

● Two or more sensors of the same type operated by a single user in close proximity to one another, so that their aggregate data provide essentially the same information as obtained from the data of a single sensor “ 

A reminder regarding our Telegram Group: price discussions are not allowed. Discussions on reselling sensors, licenses, etc, are not allowed either. The reason is that our group is devoted to discussing only items which are relevant to the PlanetWatch mission and “safe”, i.e. directly supported by PlanetWatch, such as tech support, community building, etc.  Everyone is free to create another Telegram group about other topics.

Sensors updates 

Onboarding of Awair Element and Kaiterra Sensedge Mini: we are proceeding according to schedule, so the expected time is still the end of September. 

We will officially put the Kaiterra September batch up for sale starting September 20. We should also be able to put up for sale an additional 100 Airqinos. In fact, starting from November, we will have several hundreds of Airqinos available per month! 

We said that PlanetWatch will fund +50% increasing rewards for Type 3 sensors till the end of the year. In the meantime, we will ask the Community to decide upon making this change permanent, out of the rewards budget. I have been thinking about this and also launching other verticals (water monitoring, etc) and I believe the best thing to do is that we will deliver a draft PlanetWatch White Paper 2.0, containing a number of proposed updates, and this will be submitted to Community approval. 

We are working to deliver very soon a clear list of countries where each of the sensors is approved for use. We are looking into onboarding devices which are certified for Asia for Type 1 and hopefully I can give you an update soon.

Please, check in our Map if your area is a Tier 1 before you buy Type 1 and Type 2 sensors. The Tier 1 Map will not be updated before next year. 

Payments 

As you know, we recently sold the August Airqino batch. We are verifying some payments, that’s why the counters might not display the batch being sold out. We will be able to confirm in the coming days if any August Airqinos are being moved to the September batch. 

In connection with this, please remember to never select in the payment gateway the option to send payments directly from Bitfinex. You should always send payments from your own Algorand wallet where you have your PLANETS. Please, also remember to insert your order number in the note fields of the payment transaction as this helps us process orders faster.

We will keep the possibility to pay for licenses and sensors sold by PlanetWatch in FIAT for non-European customers, until PLANETS get listed on BitMart, which should happen by the end of September. I understand that BitMart has not been licensed to serve New York State residents, so we will allow them to pay in FIAT until DeFi kicks in. As you may know, there are a number of projects that are aiming to deliver very soon DeFi platforms on Algorand: as soon as it happens, this should ensure worldwide PLANETS availability. 

New App 

By Friday, we should finish the testing part of the new App: we will involve a few people from our Community to act as testers and the goal is to release the App publicly next week. 

Here you can find PlanetWatchers’ questions to Claudio

How do I become a local distributor in the US? I have submitted a ticket and never got a response. 

If you want to do business with PlanetWatch (such as becoming a local distributor) please send an email to [email protected] 

Why is the AWAIR considered a Type 4 device and not a Type 3? It’s an indoor device which should place it in Type 3. 

Currently we classify devices as Premium Grade ones (Type 1 for outdoor, Type 3 for indoor use) and Consumer Grade ones (Type 2 outdoor and Type 4 Indoor/wearable). Type 3 devices must be RESET-compliant. As the AWAIR Element is not, it is classified as a Type 4.

Is the new Type 4 device going to be able to connect directly to PlanetWatch servers or does it need to connect to a PlanetWatch App from a smartphone? 

No, it will not need to be connected to the smartphone. 

Hi, why is the website only in English? 

We are translating the website in a number of languages and we will soon release it in a multilingual version. 

Hello, when are we going to see PLANETS on UNISWAP? 

I did mention that we will deliver an ERC20 version of our token. Currently, we are working to evaluate all costs and items, to get it right. I cannot give a date now. DEXs on Algorand might become operational in the meantime. 

If you buy a license and there are no available sensors for that license are you in line to buy a sensor when they become available?

For Type 1 and Type 3 sensors that we directly sell, the license qualifies as a place on the waiting list. If the sensor is not sold by us, we cannot do that as we do not control the stock. 

We know that there is massive expansion with the sensors and that is the priority. But can you tell us a little more about the air filtration system that will be available to buy (in the future) with PLANETS? 

We have identified a few home devices which deliver good value for money. I will do my best to give more info next week. 

Is PlanetWatch engaged in any discussions regarding future collaborations for air quality or noise monitoring with automakers? This might help to maximise the data points, both static and dynamic. If so, could you provide any information on this? 

We are talking to a wide range of corporations and authorities. This includes for example public transport operators, where indoor air quality is a very sensitive matter. Mobile outdoor measurements are interesting (sensors on cars, buses, etc.), however they are a bit tricky as the flow of air into the device is influenced by speed, etc. 

So, these are all interesting opportunities but require a careful analysis which takes time. 

Where can I find an overview of the licenses that are already in use and when will they expire? 

This is coming with the new App and we will also update the Explorer

What is/are the biggest risk/s you foresee could affect the success of PlanetWatch in the near and long term future? 

Great question. I believe the need is real and our business model is sound, so I am mostly concerned about external/force majeure risks which could affect our project. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic is a global tragedy that makes any kind of activity more difficult. Also, overregulation is a potential risk, because our activity is very new and some aspects could get over-regulated in some countries. 

Would you allow people to connect their indoor sensors to PlanetWatch just simply if they like to provide data to you, but still get reward only for one of those Type 4 sensors which they bought the license for? 

For now we will only use data compliant with our rules because we must keep the analysis simple.

For the upcoming noise monitoring project, is PlanetWatch considering wearable sensors? If so, would you also consider partnering with hearing device manufacturers to provide an applicable sensor for hearing aid wearers? 

As I said, noise monitoring is interesting and we are working on it already, but it is too early to discuss this. At the moment we want to focus on air quality. 

Hi Claudio! PW is collecting a significant amount of PLANETS through the sale of licenses and sensors. What does PW do with those PLANETS? Whilst it is great for the coin if people are required to use PLANETS to buy the licenses and sensors, if PlanetWatch sells them – for example, to cover the cost of the hardware – it could create downward pressure on coin price. 

This is a financial management question – it is just a matter of managing resources correctly. As we have adequate financial resources, I believe that we will always be able to manage them without creating any trouble on the markets, which would go against our long-term interest.

Keep watching our Planet and stay tuned for more announcements coming soon!

3 thoughts on “8 September AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO”

  1. I have a multi unit building with separate addresses and I was going to ask my tenant to host. Would this be an issue to put sensors at one address and then another set of sensors at the other address?

    1. Hi, it is allowed to own more sensors of the same Type, only if they are not in the same location, measuring the same air.

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