The PurpleAir Story
Founder and CEO of PurpleAir, Adrian Dybwad, didn’t intend to start a business. Rather, there was a question he wanted answered. As he set out to get that answer, he realized he wasn't the only one asking.
In 2015, Adrian lived in Draper, Utah. Located directly next to Draper and in close vicinity to Adrian’s home was a large gravel pit operation. This meant that with every gust of wind, along came a cloud of dust. Sometimes, this dust could affect visibility or aggravate breathing for certain individuals. The closest government air quality monitor was twenty miles away, meaning Draper represented a large gap in air quality monitoring and air quality knowledge. Without this knowledge, residents of Draper and other surrounding cities couldn’t get an accurate picture of their air.
After coming to that conclusion, Adrian said to himself, “it’s 2015; there has to be a device that can measure dust in the air.” But he couldn’t find one. So, being someone who enjoyed tinkering with and building electronics, he decided to make a device that could close that gap and answer the question: What’s in my air?
The Early Model
To create his air quality machines, Adrian harnessed a new generation of particle sensors that could detect particulate matter (PM). He utilized these sensors (which are still used in some PurpleAir models) to create the first generation of monitors. Using these devices was empowering, as it provided individuals with no prior access to air quality data the knowledge they needed to make informed decisions.
In early 2016, Adrian had produced about seven air quality sensors and was starting to develop what would become the real-time PurpleAir map. At this point in time, the sensors were built, and a very small number of people were using them. But were they any good?
To answer that question, PurpleAir sent nearly half their supply of seven sensors, three to be exact, to the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s AQ-SPEC (Air Quality Sensor Performance Evaluation Center) program in Southern California. This program tests the performance of low-cost sensors (which PurpleAir sensors are classified as) against federal monitoring standards. While it was a risky move to send them those sensors, it turned out to be the right one. The sensors were evaluated to have a 97% correlation with federal equipment, the highest the AQ-SPEC program had seen up to that point. This evaluation understandably garnered the attention of a large number of people in the air quality community, including researchers, governmental organizations, and community groups.
Where We Are Now
The original question that sparked Adrian to create his first sensor has, for the most part, been answered. He was able to utilize his PurpleAir sensors to get a clearer picture of the air quality in Draper and at his home. Ironically, dust, which was the original primary concern, is generally classified as PM10, which is a certain size range of particulate matter (the air pollutant that PurpleAir sensors measure). It is also the size range of PM that PurpleAir sensors aren’t very good at detecting. Nevertheless, if the driving question behind the formation and development of PurpleAir has been answered, where does that leave the company?
Well, Adrian doesn’t intend to end things here, the goal has just changed. From the beginning, Adrian knew that other people in his community wanted the same question answered. But what became clear as the company grew is that it wasn’t just people in Draper. It was people all over Utah, all over the U.S., and in fact, all over the world. Air quality is an issue that impacts people globally. As Adrian began to connect with more and more of these people, he realized that those relationships were the key and the answer. Now, PurpleAir seeks to empower individuals with the data they need to know their air quality.