Breathe easy on your next drive
Last summer, amid an especially dicey wildfire season, Nest Hub devices got an update that added a local air quality rating to the home screen, right next to the weather. Now, just a couple of weeks ahead of summer 2022, Google’s added a similar feature to Maps: a map of air quality ratings in your area, accessible from the layers menu.
Google announced this change more than a year ago. Air quality ratings range from zero to “400+,” with lower numbers being better. To view ratings in the Google Maps app, tap the layers icon near the top right corner, then select Air Quality under Map details. The data comes from government agencies like the EPA, Google says, plus hyper-local air quality data provider PurpleAir.
Announced in March 2021, both this feature and one that adds a Maps layer showing live weather data were initially intended to launch “in the coming months” — so it seems like Google is a little behind schedule here. Given the timing, though, it’s possible we’ll see that weather layer in the near future, too.
Thanks: Moshe
