BEST BEIJING AIR QUALITY APPS

I’m not sure what to do when air pollution gets bad in Beijing. Neither staying indoors nor wearing a mask seem like very appealing or effective options to me. Thus, I’ve purposefully kept myself ignorant of what I’m breathing in and how much. But after last weekend’s nasty turn for the worse, I decided to be a little more proactive. And I wasn’t the only one. As the smog thickened, air quality monitoring app downloads surged. In light of that trend, we’ve brought you what we think are the best apps for both Android and iOS to keep your hypochondria on the cutting edge.

Best for Android: Air Quality China for Mobile

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Air Quality China is a solid app usable for more than 140 Chinese cities. Within Beijing alone, you can chart and average up air quality index from about 30 different monitoring stations, including the US Embassy. Choose up to eight of those at one time to display on a simple and intuitive interface. Air Quality explains what those numbers actually mean, ranging from “Good” to “Hazardous.” You can choose to display data for the past 24 hours or the last 30 days in both PM2.5 and PM10 where it’s offered (different measurements for different sized particles in the air). The app also supports a simple widget for your home screen with the color-coded current air quality index number. No advertisements is another plus.

Android Honorable Mentions

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Beijing Air Quality totes many of the same features as Air Quality China, but is specifically Beijing-only. It includes a handy weather readout with the current temperature, wind, humidity and precipitation as well. I find the graphs a little bit easier to read than Air Quality China, but the ugly and obtrusive Forbidden City picture at the bottom could be done away with along with the advertisement. It does, to its credit, have a cartoon cat wearing a face mask.

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If you want to be more scientific about your air quality measures, China Air Quality Index is probably your best bet. Its interface is less user-friendly and simple than Air Quality China, but it offers more types of pollution data including PM2.5, PM10, SO2 and NO2. Like Air Quality China, the ad-supported China AQI can access indices from several cities across the country.




Best for iOS: CN Air Quality

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The China Air Quality app from Fresh Ideas wins out for its slick, attractive interface and bags of choice. When you load the app, the latest air quality readings from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou pop up but if those locations don’t suit you, you can choose others. CN Air Quality aggregates data from more than 120 cities nationwide and even ranks them according to a “pollution index” although, confusingly, some of the city names only show up in Chinese. The app presents data from both the US Embassy and China's Ministry of Environmental Protection side-by-side, allowing you to see just how the latter is playing down the pollution threat… Along with PM2.5 and PM10 stats, the MEP’s sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide readings are also featured, and there’s a relevant health warning. 

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Clicking on a location takes you to a nifty graph where you can toggle between air quality readings for the past 24 hours, 48 hours, 7 days or a month. You can also compare the pollution level distribution over a much longer period, up to two years.

My favourite feature is “View in Map” which gives you a great overview of recent pollution levels across any part of China. Beware, it can take an age to load.

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The app also offers the option of sharing air quality data via social networks. But that’s not terribly helpful if you have no VPN on your mobile, plus do you really want to tell your friends you’re living in a toxic soup?! Maybe best keep that on the DL.

Caveat: CN Air Quality has been chosen for its interface, not its reliability. It has a tendency to bug and unexpectedly shut down. (That could partly be my fault for failing to run the newest version of iOS, but still.) Also, it’s free but you have to put up with a small ad on the home-screen – appropriately enough, trying to sell you an air purifier.

iOS Honorable Mentions

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Beijing/Shanghai Air Quality by Solar Joke is a bit basic but if you want up-to-date info fast, you could do worse. The layout’s similar to the iOS’s existing Weather app: a simple blue box with location on the left – touch to switch between Beijing and Shanghai – and, if you’re unlucky, a photo of a skyline wrapped in brown smog.

The PM 2.5 reading is again from the US Embassy but there’s a link to the MEP’s daily air quality report, should you want to check that out. Next to that is the option to share the data on Weibo

On the downside, no detailed health advice here, no fancy graphs plotting pollution levels over time, and the Google Maps ad at the bottom of the screen bugs me because it intrudes on the display.

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