Response to Awair’s March 31st statement

Dear PlanetWatchers, 

Following the statement issued by Awair on March 31st as a response to our initial statement published on March 30th, we feel the need to clarify a few points:

1) Awair’s claim that we should pay fees because of exceeding a query limit is totally baseless. The alleged API calls restriction is not mentioned at all in the contract that we signed with Awair, nor was it raised in the discussions leading to the signature. The restriction narrative was first brought to the attention of PlanetWatch in January after we announced our decision to suspend Type 4 license sales. The contract was aimed at enabling PlanetWatch to receive data from your sensors, thereby empowering you to exercise your right to share data with us and get rewards for it.

2) Our decision to pause Type 4 license sales back in January was made in the best interest of the project and driven by an analysis of network performance/balance in view of the very fast growth of Type 4 devices. This decision was entirely legitimate as we have no obligation or commitment for specific onboarding volumes with any sensor manufacturer. Incidentally, it is worth recalling that Awair sold over 40,000 Element devices to PlanetWatchers with some substantial price increases along the way.

3) Throughout the negotiation process we put forth several times a reasonable and straightforward solution to the outstanding issues, whereby Awair would send data directly to PlanetWatch’s platform. This would have radically reduced Awair’s network costs and stabilized the data transfer process. Instead of engaging in a constructive discussion, Awair decided to deliver an ultimatum, which led up to the current situation.

Having clarified the above points, our focus is now 100% on the contingency plan and on an adequate long-term solution to protect PlanetWatch’s network and community.