This article summarises the answers that our CEO, Claudio Parrinello, gave in the AMA session on December 29.
Before answering your questions, let’s start with some announcements.
We are doing our best in a very difficult global market context. US sales and shipping have been slightly delayed. Lots of Type 1 Airqino sensors are being shipped today and this process will continue in the coming days.
We will soon be sending additional purchase emails for Airqino addressing North American PlanetWatchers.
Moreover, we should be able to send a large number of purchase emails for Type 3 Kaiterra next week. The goal is completing sales for the Q4 2021 batch with a slight delay with respect to the initial plan, by January 10 2022.
We recently had a Governance vote and we asked the Community to say whether they supported our proposal to raise rewards’ rate for Type 3 sensors. The motivation behind this had to do with the quality of the data coming from these sensors.
Our proposal was approved with a very large majority, so as of yesterday the new rates have been implemented in the reward engine.
It has also allowed us to test run our decentralised governance model and we are truly happy to see that things have worked out.
Note that this change to the rewards’ rate calls for a quick update of the White Paper.
We encourage everybody who has not done it yet to update the App to the latest version (1.1.3) – Android or iOs – since a number of issues have been fixed in this new version.
Prices for the devices we sell, namely Type 1 Airqino and Type 3 Kaiterra Sensedge Mini, must be raised because there are a number of factors creating price pressure, such as customs fees and restrictions that keep changing and increasing in some cases.
Additional factors include Algorand transaction fees, server costs and also the need to strengthen the team. We believe price increases are in the best interest of the project.
But we are playing it very fair, since if you already bought a Type 1 or a Type 3 license and you are in our waiting list, you will not be affected by these price changes. So, holders of 2021 licenses will buy the sensors when their time comes at 2021 prices.
For those who are wishing to buy licences in 2022, the prices will be set quarter by quarter.
Sensor prices for holders of licenses bought next quarter – Q1 2022 from the 1st January to the 31st March 2022 – are:
We aim to keep sensor prices fixed for one quarter at a time, because we do not know yet what will be the situation in Q2 2022. If needed, we reserve the right to change prices again, with a good advance warning of course.
We have been saying for a long time that license transfers will be allowed because there are a number of situations where it makes sense to let people transfer licenses from one person to another (e.g: when a sensor fails and must be replaced).
However, not everyone is acting in good faith, so we will set up and announce an official license transfer policy early next year. This is aimed at making life easier for legitimate PlanetWatchers, as well as trying to prevent potential abuses. Since licenses for Type 1 and Type 3 sensors are also placeholders in our waiting list, there might be people willing to play some games that are not aligned with the spirit of PlanetWatch’s project.
At the moment, license transfers are a manual process requiring intervention from PlanetWatch’s team. Because people’s time is costly, and we are taking away resources from other important activities, we might set a fee for license transfers.
The mission of the project is delivering useful environmental data. For that we rely on appropriate sensors and appropriate deployment standards.
For example, it does not make sense to deploy an outdoor air quality sensor close to a car’s exhaust or in other locations where very specific events are taking place.
We will soon publish outdoor sensor deployment guidelines and we will ask you to do your best to comply with them.
We are strengthening and reorganising the team. There’s a new organisational chart coming up soon.
When do we get an update on Treedom?We have been talking quite a bit about our “Stake for the Planet” initiative. We really like the idea of letting people stake not for direct financial benefit but to help plant trees in a sustainable forest. However, we have not started yet because, on a technical level, it is a complex project to integrate into our sequence of products. I am quite hopeful that before the end of Q1 2022 we will be able to launch this properly.
New Awair Element licences are registering as Atmotube licences. When will this be fixed?This issue only affected iOS devices and it was fixed on the 1.1.2. App version. Please keep your phone updated with the latest version of the App.
Asia updates for Airqino certification?Certification is a very complex process. You have to talk to local authorities and make sure you are compliant with local standards, so it can only be handled by the actual manufacturer of the device. We reached out to Airqino’s manufacturer and they confirmed they are working on Asia certifications.
What will be the biggest milestone in 2022 for PlanetWatch?There are many goals: more stable software, improving the sensors’ performance, selling data to local authorities and cities to demonstrate its value, achieving significant coverage in top European cities and worldwide, entering the Asian market, among others. All in all, we want to become the global reference for air quality monitoring.
What is your wish for PlanetWatch for 2022? We want to scale up air quality coverage and become a global reference. We also want to improve user experience and last but not least we want to introduce some technical innovations. It’s not just about getting bigger but also about improving.
Did PlanetWatch have a discussion with the European Commission regarding the “Green Deal”?Awareness regarding the importance of environmental monitoring is growing fast. We are scanning opportunities. For instance, we submitted, together with academic partners, an indoor air quality study proposal to the European Commission and we are still waiting for feedback.
Why is Awair Element not supported in Georgia? If I manage to get it somehow will it work in Georgia? Our licenses have a worldwide scope. There is no technical restriction on the licenses side. Regarding devices, since they are a piece of hardware, applicable regulations vary from one country to another. Generally speaking, when we list the countries in which a certain device is available, we are following the manufacturer’s guidelines. We approve the devices for the countries where it’s possible to ship devices. In most cases, restrictions are related to manufacturer’s policies so you need to ask the manufacturer.
Keep watching our Planet and get ready to help us make it greener by staking your PLANETS!
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