To check the quality of air in your city, you have to simply search for “air quality” on Google Search. You will find an identically named card on top, with a map of your city. Color-coded pins, which are labeled with alphabets, will tell the air quality for each station in that area. You can match these colored pins with an index below the map to know the AQI category (good, poor, severe, etc.) for that station. Google Search also provides you with a list of all stations shown on the map, identified by their respective alphabet label. These entries come with the name of the station, locality, and the AQI category. You can expand the entries for additional information such as the health impact of the air quality in that area, the source of the data, and when the data was last updated. In India, Google Search sources air quality data from National AQI – Central Pollution Control Board. In the US, the company is sourcing the data from airnow.gov and PurpleAir. You cannot zoom in on the map. However, you can narrow the scope of your search area by selecting a specific locality in your city. You can also specify a city or suburban in your query to find real-time air quality information of that area on Google Search. The company also offers an option to “include air sensors” if there aren’t enough stations in your city. However, according to a 9to5Google report, Google notes that “sensor data may have unknown performance and inaccuracies.”
Google Search starts showing air quality data in more regions
As said earlier, Google Search first started showing air quality information in India in November 2021. But before that, the feature rolled out on the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max in the US. The company is now adding the feature to Search in the US too. Considering how helpful air quality information can be for people with lung diseases or difficulty breathing, we hope Google will bring this feature to the Weather app on Android soon. The app did show air quality data earlier but the company removed it in 2018. We will let you if the feature returns in the future.
