Become a PlanetWatcher

July 14 AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO

July 14 AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO

In this article you’ll find the answers that our CEO, Claudio Parrinello, gave in the AMA session on July 14.

Before answering your questions, take a sneak peek at the new PlanetWatch global map that will be soon released.

In the new map you will be able to see all the sensors in the PlanetWatch network, including the Atmotube Pros.

Here you can find PlanetWatchers’ questions to Claudio

SENSORS QUESTIONSTYPE 1 – AIRQINO

Will you be able to deliver an Airqino version that includes solar panels?

It depends on the manufacturer, but It could be quite expensive. Anyway, They’re looking into it.

Can I use the Airqino indoors?

No, you can’t, because this device is meant to provide information about outdoor air quality.

When will Airqino be available in the US?

The bottleneck for sensor availability, in this case, is compliance, which is in the hands of manufacturers. They hope to get it done by October, but no guarantee. 

Once compliance is sorted out, I believe we can quickly supply several hundreds.

What is the timeframe to order the Airqino pre-ordered in Europe?

As soon as we will be ready to sell, eligible license holders will receive an email notification and then you will have one week to complete your purchase. If you don’t complete the purchase within a week, you’ll lose your spot in the waiting list and it will be given to the next one in line.

Will there be a US waitlist too for the Airqino purchase?

All countries not listed in the E-commerce on planetwatch.io, are in principle served by planetwatch.us. The Airqino waitlist for these countries, including the US, is based on license selling order on planetwatch.us.

When will the next Airqino batch be available ?  

Some should be available as soon as October.

Does Airqino have a warranty against lightning strike? 

We will ask the manufacturer.

Will the planetwatch.us site allow us to buy Type 1 licenses in USD before the Type 1 sensors are available in the US? 

Yes, it already does.

TYPE 2 SENSORS

When will Arianna be available for US customers?

This system is no longer available. We ‘re working with a partner to deliver a new Type 2 system that will have GPS, which is important from our point of view, and it should come in the Fall.

TYPE 3 SENSORS

I’ve purchased a Type 3 license, how do I get informed when the sensor will be available?

You will get an email notification.

If Type 3 will have a final price around €600, in terms of mining the token, it doesn’t look cost effective, compared to other cheaper systems like Atmotube PRO.

We’re still negotiating the price, so our estimate might change (for the better) in the coming days. Regardless, you should keep into account that Type 3 sensors are very reliable devices. Once you’ve installed them properly in a suitable location and as long as Internet connection is working, they work seamlessly.

Generally speaking, we have two scenarios when dealing with hardware:

Scenario 1, e.g. Atmotube PRO: once we onboard the device, we don’t get involved in the sales process, so you buy from manufacturer/third-party resellers, who ship, issue the warranty, etc. This is the preferred process for us, as it does not commit PlanetWatch resources to low-value activities such as logistics, etc. In this scenario, we have no control on stock levels, so PlanetWatch licenses cannot be used to mark your place on a waiting list in case of device shortages 

Scenario 2 is when we step in the hardware sales process. This means that we first buy sensors in bulk and then resell to you. The advantage here is that we have some power to negotiate prices with suppliers (e.g. for Airqino and Kaiterra) and also, we can link licenses to places on waiting lists as we own the stock. When this happens, we set up license counters, which show whether or not you can get a device quickly if you buy a license. Please bear in mind that the total price for PlanetWatchers comprises a baseline price, i.e. the money that goes to PlanetWatch, plus taxes, shipping and customs charges. These vary and, generally speaking, PlanetWatch won’t be able to absorb them. 

Last point to consider: as stated on page 56 of the White Paper, in the “Revenues from Data Access Sales” part, as soon as data will start to be monetized by PlanetWatch, owners of the sensors who are generating this data will be able to profit from this, because a fraction of the token revenue generated by the devices will come back to sensor owners.

TYPE 4 SENSORS

When will Atmotube PRO be available again?

Atmotube PRO is one of the devices that we don’t sell directly: we don’t control stock levels, so generally speaking you should refer to the manufacturer’s website. However, exceptionally, we have secured some time ago a batch of 200 Atmotube PRO which will be sold by us as soon as possible: 50% on planetwatch.us, 50% on planetwatch.io.

Finally, we’ve got an update from Atmotube that the new stock of Atmotube Pro will be manufactured and ready to ship to their warehouses in the US and Europe by the end of August.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Can you have one of each sensor type in your home? 

Yes, you can, because cross-checking data is useful to us, e.g. Type 3 and Type 4 measurements for indoor air parameters.

Currently, there seem to be few approved sensors, why don’t you expand the number of manufacturers per sensor Type?

Yes, absolutely, it is true. However, since we don’t want to compromise the data quality, we have to make sure that data are reliable and can be streamed efficiently to PlanetWatch. This process takes some time. 

Are you planning to use DEX’s? thus starting up Liquidity pools? What is the timeline for Planets token to be listed on a US exchange? 

We’re working in both directions. DEX could possibly come faster. We’ll keep you posted.

Are you going to change the daily Planets earned by Type 2 sensors and Type 3 sensors?

Your baseline Planets earnings are dictated by the rules in the White Paper. We won’t touch that. What could happen, in your favour, is that PlanetWatch, as a company, might offer additional tokens on top of the reward budget, out of our pocket, if we feel that some specific sensor deployment has high priority.

By allowing people to only buy with Planets on planetwatch.io website, this has advantages and disadvantages. The question is, what outweighs what?

The PRO is:

– It’s good for the adoption of the Algorand blockchain, thus of the Planets token;

The CON is:

– Many people don’t understand this payment method, so this could slow down adoption.

Our perception, is that all in all, it is better to insist on PLANETS only payments on planetwatch.io, so for the time being we aren’t going to change this.

I’d like to encourage all the people who hold the Type 1 license in Europe, for the July and August Airqino batches, to get Planets to purchase the sensor, because it will only be payable in PLANETS. 

What happens if I move the sensor in another pixel and somebody else gets into that pixel? Which one will be the lead sensor?

Please refer to the White Paper. Only the first Type 1 sensor in a pixel gets the 100-point bonus subject to some requirements.

Can we loan PLANETS with interest to buy Sensors or Licenses? 

For compliance reasons, PlanetWatch as a company is not going to get involved in financial transactions involving PLANETS and individual users. You can do what you want with your own PLANETS, just beware of scammers and make sure you comply with all the laws and regulations applicable in your jurisdiction. Also, somebody asked about PlanetWatch providing tax calculators. Sorry, we’ll never do that.

Can you explain in layman terms how network saturation will impact rewards if at all (at the rate we’re going, saturation will get hit pretty quickly)? 

When saturation kicks in, the annual reward budget may not suffice to award max rewards to sensors which deliver all the required streams. So the pie must be sliced thinner. However, the recycling bin mechanism will delay that, so we expect that max rewards will still be available for some time even after the saturation point is attained. 

However, it’s very hard to make any numerical predictions. 

Who could be interested in buying PlanetWatch data? Only government entities or also commercial companies? And do you have an actual demand for this?

Let me start with indoor data and something I’m very proud of: in order to prove that data have market value, you first have to prove that they are scientifically sound.

A few days ago, our first publication in a scientific magazine was published, authored by PlanetWatch researchers together with scientists from University of Bologna. The paper reports on a study on indoor air quality in a high-profile hotel based in Turin (in the North of Italy), and all the data comes from PlanetWatch sensor.

In fact, this paper provides evidence both for scientific and market validation, since the hotel is a paying PlanetWatch customer where we installed a comprehensive indoor air quality monitoring system, in compliance with an international standard called RESET.

Indoor data from households are also very interesting, since our Type 3 sensors comply with the RESET international standard. This will allow us to compare indoor air quality data across the world, and we believe that we can build very relevant products and studies out of these data. 

Rest assured that we will always preserve your privacy, i.e. we will never disclose your location and personal data. All studies and products are based on anonymized, aggregated data.

For outdoor air quality data, especially in a city context, potential buyers include local government entities, who are interested in better management of public health, as well as a wide range of companies. Some examples of companies we are talking to are online media outlets and TV stations, who are keen to deliver real-time data feeds of hyperlocal air quality information to their audience.

Also, makers of fitness-related Apps are itnerested in PlanetWatch data – when people go out jogging or walking with their children, they are interested in information about the air they are breathing. 

We are also talking to a huge company in the mapping and mobility arena, which has just announced that they want to put an air quality layer on top of their mapping Apps. Let’s see how this goes. 

Last but not least, we are talking to the mayors of many important cities, including a very large one in the USA.

Can you create a forum that has sections for FAQ, future enhancements, bugs, etc.? 

We have published our Discord server and a support portal from the website.

We’ll soon set up a Telegram Channel for official announcements.

When will the PlanetWatch app get an update? 

There will be a blog post in the coming days about this.

Can we get a heads up before changes are made that affect the user experience (e.g. if the interval that PW sends to the algorand wallet changes from every 2 min to every 10 min)?

Ok, we’ll do our best to do this. I suppose you refer to recent changes to the frequency of blockchain transactions. Ideally, we should have announced them well ahead of implementing. 

Let me explain why we did this: up until a few days ago, we were posting roughly 700,000 blockchain transactions in a single day. A great performance indicator, which makes us the leader in Algorand blockchain usage, however this is a substantial cost (over 20,000 algos/month). So, we need to optimize the way we write data on the blockchain in order to have more resources for the project.

Can we buy and sell used Type 1/2/3/4 sensors? 

We don’t recommend you do this, since at the moment rewards would not move automatically to the buyer’s account. 

What are the terms of the partnership with EMRIT? I’m afraid EMRIT will do the same business deal with PlanetWatch like they did with Helium. 

I believe we already proved (and I discussed this in my previous AMA) that we won’t let anybody monopolize PlanetWatch, as we secured a large stock of Type 1 sensors for direct sales. 

EMRIT have their own business model and community, which broadly speaking is happy to earn fewer tokens and get free hardware. As long as their business model and community can fit within the rules in our White Paper, I believe the partnership is beneficial to PlanetWatch. 

Again, everybody is welcome in PlanetWatch as long as they can live with our rules. 

Let me just say quickly that our rules are not just technical ones. They do reflect our human values so behavioural rules are important. Polite and respectful behaviour is required in all our social channels. 

When will governance points go into effect?

Before the end of 2021. One example of decisions to be submitted to the community is sensor onboarding for other environmental verticals, e.g. water quality monitoring.

Any plans on utilizing IOT sensors? 

Based on my own definition of IoT, we ARE using IoT sensors, e.g. Airqinos which autonomously connect and stream data to the Internet.

Is the current number of sold Type 1, 2, 3 and 4 devices information for public viewing, how often is it updated?

We are about to release a new public dashboard where you will be able to see all these features.

Any plans to expand on LoraWan technology versus bluetooth? 

Maybe, yes.

What is next on the horizon? 

We’ll release a road map by the end of the month, as promised. Broadly speaking, our priorities are: 

  • Ensure global availability of all types of air quality sensors; 
  • Ensure broad availability of PLANETS tokens, subject to compliance in all jurisdictions;
  • Develop business-grade data products both for outdoor and indoor air quality, to achieve full market validation and let PlanetWatchers reap additional  benefits for owning sensors which stream meaningful data;
  • Explore additional environmental verticals.

When will I be able to buy my Airqino? I bought the Type 1 license several days ago and I am one of the 60 people who can buy it in July.  

For the July batch, I’m confident to say we will be able to sell by the end of the month.

How close can I have a second Atmotube without being punished? What if my neighbors have one? 

There’s no problem with neighbours having an Atmotube PRO. As long as they are not in the exact same location it will be ok.

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

1 thought on “July 14 AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *