April 6 PlanetWatch special AMA recap

In this article you can find a recap of the 6th of April special AMA with our CEO, Claudio Parrinello.

Recap of events

The past week has been quite intense and probably confusing to many of you. Let’s do a recap of events:
– Awair, the manufacturer of one of our approved devices, Element, has unilaterally terminated the agreement under which they were providing PlanetWatch with the service needed to retrieve data streams from the sensors. 
– We have issued statements explaining why we believe they are in breach of contract and all their claims are baseless. 

On the one hand, PlanetWatch as a company will internally evaluate options to deal with Awair, in connection with our legal advisors.

On the other hand, our focus now is on protecting the PlanetWatch network and community.

Contingency plan

As you know, we quickly reacted to the situation by setting up a contingency plan. This plan leveraged a community tool developed in record time. The tool worked well and we appreciate the dev community’s big effort. 

Yet, despite the value of the community tool, we realize we need a more sustainable approach. After taking a bit of time to evaluate all pros and cons, including the energy consumption related to using the tool, plus the fact that the onboarding process to connect new Element sensors to the network was also blocked, we have decided that, in the interest of our network, Element is no longer a PlanetWatch-approved device.

Effective April 7th 2 a.m. CET PlanetWatch is no longer processing data streams from Element devices.

Therefore, you do not have to run the community tool anymore. As for the device itself, it is up to you whether to keep it plugged in or not for your own purposes. It still is a good air quality monitoring sensor. Just not a PlanetWatch-supported one.

So, if you are now considering buying an Element device with the main goal of connecting it to Planetwatch’s network, you should not do that.

Mid-term plan

We are phasing out Element as a device but we certainly do not want to phase out the Element community! 

At the moment, we are putting in place a mid-term plan for the next 30 days to safeguard the people most affected by this issue.

If you are:
1) a PlanetWatcher with an Element sensor active and linked to a Type 4 license
2) one of those who have an Element sensor but no license and submitted a ticket (within the prescribed time frame providing the right documentation according to the requirements – March 18th, 6 p.m. CET) in order to get one
3) one of those who have an Element sensor and a license but could not complete the onboarding
… you will receive 5.4 PLANETS/day, funded by PlanetWatch, not by the White Paper – this means we are not using the daily rewards budget, the funds come from the company’s wallet.

We are taking financial responsibility for the situation, until we release our long-term plan.

Summing up:
– People in group 1) will keep receiving 5.4 PLANETS/day as of April 7th. 
– People in groups 2) and 3) will have to wait a bit. After reviewing your tickets, if you qualify, you will be receiving 5.4 PLANETS/day retroactively once all checks are completed.

In the meantime, we are going to reopen Type 4 license sales this week. Evidently these can only be used for Atmotube PRO, which is now the only Type 4 approved device. More details will be released soon.

Long-term plan

As already mentioned, even though there will be no data coming in from Element sensors, as a signal of commitment towards the community, we are providing rewards for the next 30 days while we work on a long-term plan. It is also a way of showing gratitude for your support to the project through this difficult time.

We have a number of possibilities in mind but we need to ponder them before coming forth with an optimised proposal. Our goal is to deliver a long-term plan which incentivises the people most affected by this issue to stick around and remain part of PlanetWatch.

In parallel, we are working on the main deliverables of the project. We are making progress towards market validation with the recent news on monetization of Type 1 and Type 3 data and we have other exciting developments/initiatives in the pipeline, such as the new waiting list management system and the Stake for the Planet.

Keep watching our Planet and help us make it greener by staking your PLANETS! 🌍