October 13 AMA session with PlanetWatch CEO

In this article you will find the answers that our CEO, Claudio Parrinello, gave in the AMA session on October 13.

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

For Kaiterra sensors, all remaining emails for the September batch are out today. We already sold you over 1,300 devices. We will deliver at least 900 more by the end of October and a further 1,000+ in the following month. For Kaiterra, we do not anticipate major stock shortages. 

For Airqino sensors, the situation is slightly different, because they come from a company which is a spin-off of a scientific institution, like PlanetWatch itself. They have been manufacturing their devices mostly for an academic customer base so far, which means they are not used to large production numbers. Given the strong interest from the PlanetWatch Community, they have committed to stepping up production to over 1,000 per month by the end of the year. 

With a view to giving you as much information as possible about sensor deliveries, we are working on our interfaces and websites. The goal is that when you buy a license, based on your order number, you will be able to see in which quarter you are likely to get the sensor. I am saying quarter, because it is a safe assumption that we can make for Airqino. 

Please note that your position in the waiting list is not something that can be written in stone. When we buy a batch of sensors, the manufacturer gives us some time and size commitment, but they always specify that it is subject to component shortages and their own suppliers not fulfilling their commitments. It can happen that they sell us a batch of 500 sensors and commit to a delivery date and then, for example, they tell us that they were supposed to receive a batch of electronic boards the previous week but they did not, so there would be a delay.

On top of this, sometimes orders are cancelled, refunds are issued, so that many events can affect the waiting list. In some cases, you might get the device earlier than you thought.

I have just got confirmation that PLANETS will be listed on Bitmart on the 22nd of October:

• Deposits will open on 21/10/2021;
• Trade will start on 22/10/2021;
• Withdrawals will be enabled on 23/10/2021.

The Kaiterra and the AWAIR Element onboarding plus the App release are proceeding according to schedule and will happen by the end of October.

We will have our very first Science AMA on Friday October 15. Doctor Gabriella Motta will answer many questions that we already received about what VOCs are, why PM2.5 grow when you do certain things in your house etc. She is an expert and I think it will be a very interesting AMA session.

One additional very important announcement

We are talking to potential data buyers and they want extra checks on data quality and integrity. Which means that we cannot afford “dubious” data in the network. 

We are cracking down on cheaters. Cheaters are people who earn PLANETS illegally with respect to the rules in the White Paper, which they then sell straight away in the market. 

The message is: cheaters destroy value for honest PlanetWatchers by polluting our datasets with irrelevant data, for example by deploying multiple devices in the same room. 

This is why we are taking action to tighten controls on data streams. We have already blocked the most suspicious devices and asked for explanations.

Please remember that data quality means value. Value for data buyers, value for PlanetWatchers. We are stepping up security, as data quality requires security.

We are setting some new some rules:

On the website, you will not be able to buy more than 5 licenses per Type per person. If you want more than 5 and can explain why, open a ticket and choose the option “Licenses beyond 5 limit”.

We updated our Terms and Conditions to better reflect our policies: 

• Identity checks (KYC) will be implemented whenever we feel this is necessary. As you probably know, the crypto world is moving towards more transparency and widespread KYC, because we all have an interest to be compliant with the national and international legislation;
• Holders of multiple licenses will see the earliest bought license used first when they buy a sensor. For example if you buy a license in January, then you buy a sensor in June and also buy a new license, your January license will be attached to your sensor and removed from the waiting list. 
• Some people are playing around with refunds. So far, we were issuing refunds for PLANETS payments based on the principle: you pay 10 PLANETS, we refund 10 PLANETS. We have now realised that this is WRONG from the accounting viewpoint! Since invoices are issued for a well-defined fiat value, refunds should match that value. The wrong procedure encouraged speculators, who would seek refunds when the PLANETS price goes up. So, we modified our Terms and Conditions to enforce a clear refund policy, where the value of refunds for PLANETS payments will be made based on the prevailing PLANETS/Euro/Dollar exchange rate 48 hours after the time when the ticket is opened. Some people will complain, but this is both correct in accounting terms as well as fair, as exchange rate fluctuations can work both ways. 

These policies are meant to protect real PlanetWatchers.

Here you can find answers to PlanetWatchers’ questions to Claudio

When is the new app arriving?

As I have said, by the end of the month.

Will there be more partnerships with other types of sensors? 

Yes, there will be.

How long do you expect the PlanetWatch project to last? 

100 years 🙂

When will Airquinos work in Israel? 

Please note that when on our website we indicate “not permitted” for a certain country, this comes from information provided by the manufacturer. Lack of compliance with respect to national regulations could trigger problems at the customs. Sometimes, manufacturers do not have historical records on delivery in some countries and they are not sure that the sensor will comply with local standards. In case of doubt, please check our website or contact the manufacturer.

What criteria the PW team is looking at when choosing potential devices for integration? 

Relevance to our mission, performance, value for money and reliability.

Please improve on support. Still the waiting is far too long for both answers as solutions. Mods are better and faster in answering and offering solutions. 

We will work on this, but you can help us in many ways. Please, do not submit tickets for questions which are answered elsewhere. I have been told that there are a very large number of tickets related to second-hand Atmotube PRO. This is a problem, because very often the sensor is already registered on our network. I said in the past that we do not recommend device sales across the network, because if the sensor is already registered and it changes owner, you open a ticket, we ask you to get in touch with the seller, and we enter into a cumbersome and complex process. We are doing this service out of goodwill, but eventually, we may have to put a fee on it, because it is very time consuming in terms of PlanetWatch resources. 

Do you have an estimation of coverage percentage of a country with your sensors which will be considered solid for AQ data selling? 

We mostly think in terms of city coverage. The coverage goal is in the white paper, i.e. 1 Type 1 and a few, say 5 Type 2 per pixel. I think that starting from 50% of this goal we can provide interesting data.

When will the White Paper 2.0 be delivered? Any approximations?

Some of the changes in the White Paper will be subject to a community vote. The simplest way to run this Governance exercise is via the new App. For this reason, I would say that the voting will take place in November.

Are there any companies that are currently interested in PlanetWatch data? Which kind of companies are the target of PW and client? For outdoors?

It is a bit different for indoor and outdoor data. For outdoors data the key customers are: local government organisations, online media companies, mapping and navigation App developers. For indoors there are hotels, hospitals, condos, etc…

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