November 17 AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO

In this article you will find the answers that our CEO, Claudio Parrinello, gave in the AMA session on November 17.

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

It is a very busy week, as usual. I am at the moment in Barcelona, and we are participating in a major Smart City event. We are meeting lots of interesting people and companies and I must say I was particularly happy to meet in person several PlanetWatchers. It’s great to talk to people who really believe in what we are doing and I guess they were relieved to check that I’m a real person and not a Multiverse Avatar 🙂

Let’s get into the key issues now. 

I am glad to announce that we have hopefully sorted out all major issues which were affecting rewards for Awair Element sensors. 

As of tomorrow, rewards for Awair Element sensors are expected to be in line with expectations, i.e. devices streaming data with no interruptions, no location issues, etc, should receive max. daily rewards in line with the White Paper. Of course, issues with individual devices can still occur for a number of reasons, and that applies to all devices in the network. Please do not open tickets for Awair Element until after tomorrow’s distribution and only open a ticket if you do believe there is a real problem with your device. 

As previously announced, we have declared the month of November 2021 as an extended testing period for the newly onboarded devices from Kaiterra and Awair. During a testing period, things are not seamless, and this should not be a surprise. We have decided that all owners of active Kaiterra and Awair sensors, i.e. those which have active licenses as of today, will be granted a free 1-month license extension. This means, for example, that if you have a 1-year license expiring on Nov. 10, 2022, you will be able to stream data from your sensor until Dec. 10, 2022 at no additional cost. 

Once again some people are asking for compensation in terms of free tokens. Please note that this is not going to happen, simply because it would not be consistent with what PlanetWatch is. We are NOT an investment scheme. You pay in order to be able to participate in our project, which means deploying a sensor, collecting data and being rewarded for useful data. The impact of technical issues in November was that you were not able to fully contribute to PlanetWatch. Therefore, we grant you one extra month of time to be able to contribute at no additional cost. This is the type of compensation that makes sense in our ecosystem. 

Type 1 Airqino update: the first lot of emails to purchase Airqino, based on our waiting list, is going out today. Please remember that the flow of emails will follow stock availability, so people who belong in the same batch may not get the email on the same day. 

Here you can find PlanetWatchers’ questions to Claudio

Could you explain how exactly readings from Awair Element can be used? As this is the air inside a house and if a person does not open the window ever, the readings can be very bad and not reflect the outside air quality.

We know for sure that those data are relevant, as we are talking to a number of research institutes. There is a lot of interest for data on indoor air quality in households. This data is important for public health studies. Of course, we need large datasets in order to extract useful information. Specific points of interest are outdoor/indoor comparison and indoor data segmentation. For the latter, we might at some point seek your consent to provide us with additional info, e.g. if there is a smoker in the family or not, a pregnant woman, etc,. Subject to your consent and anonymously, this is interesting because this would enable the analysis of the impact for example of smoking habits on household air quality, or what percentage of pregnant women are typically exposed to poor air quality. 

Thanks to Sara and Renzo, as they dealt with my previous concerns in a timely fashion and are very professional.

Whenever people take the time to say thank you to a specific staff member, I’m very glad to share this. All team members are very professional, everybody is working long hours, so it is great to hear that you perceive and appreciate our commitment.

Climate change is a big issue right now. Any foreseeable partnerships with the US government or other countries ?

Well, as it often happens, it is too early to disclose anything in that respect, but watch this space, because when I say we have lots of high level discussions…I mean it. 🙂

Each stream costs 0.001 Algorand? Who is paying this and what will happen if Algorand prices increase dramatically?

We pay the fees and we hedge the risk. In connection with this, let me also announce for the sake of transparency that as of today, we will be writing data on the blockchain every hour instead of every 15 minutes. This is a more efficient and cost-effective way to manage our resources. 

When will I be able to check an order number and see an estimated date to pay for the sensor?

This is on the Tech Road Map. Hopefully by the end of the year, or in January at the latest.

Please, do anything about scalpers! It would be easy to restrict at least some scalping. Like making new sensors exclusive for those who already have a licence for one day, only let people with a KYC buy a sensor or two, sell only one sensor per login or IP. 

Some suggested measures are already in place, e.g. KYC and license number restrictions. Please, refer to what I said in previous occasions: if you take a FOMO attitude to PlanetWatch, you want to get in fast because you think you will make more money, etc, etc… and then you end up buying hardware at a crazy price from a random person or company, taking lots of risks. If your hardware turns out to be faulty, it is your problem. My advice is to focus on the fact that PlanetWatch is not a get-rich-quick scheme! If that is what you are looking for, you are definitely in the wrong place. On the other hand, I believe we will deliver huge real value, based on real data, over time. So, my advice is to be patient and buy hardware only from PlanetWatch or from manufacturers. Your call!

Now, let me rush back into the Barcelona event. 

Ah, last but not least….

I said last time that a major announcement is coming. Indeed, it is. Most likely the PR will go out next Tuesday. I believe you won’t be disappointed!

Keep watching the Planet and get ready to help us make it greener by staking your Planets for trees!