If you’re registering your PurpleAir sensor, you might notice that we provide an option to share the data from your sensor with a third party called Weather Underground (WU).
It is important to be aware that WU currently does not support the connection of an existing WU account to a PurpleAir sensor. Your device will have to be registered with a new WU account. Thus, the checkbox labeled “Create new Weather Underground sensor ID” must be checked, as the capability for connecting an existing account is not available at this time.
If you opt into uploading your sensor’s data to Weather Underground, your sensor will send air quality data to WU’s database at the hostname sensors-ingest.wunderground.com.
If you would like to see air quality data on the WU map, you can navigate to wunderground.com/wundermap. On the right side of the page, you can choose a sensor network to view. Select “Air Quality” and then the subheading “PM 2.5”. This will allow you to view the sensors that WU is using to get air quality data. PurpleAir sensors that have opted in will appear here.
Note: We have seen instances where a single PurpleAir sensor will not appear in an area. We believe the WU algorithm occasionally causes this until it is corroborated by another nearby sensor.
The instructions aren’t working – the link to sensors-ingest.wunderground.com is broken, and when you submit the sensor page with “Create new Weather Underground sensor ID” checked, you get an error message telling you to try again later. Is there a plan to fix this?
Very disappointed, Entire intent of buying purple air was the recommendations by wunderground. if it does not gets integrated with wunderground account then it kills the entire purpose of buying this sensor as entire intent was to bring all sensors and data on one common platform.
I’ve confirmed my PA-II-FLEX is showing up on WeatherUnderground site
when I follow the above directions.
But, I cannot find a way to link the device to my existing WU account (also as it says above).
I did try creating a type “OTHER” weather station on WU first, then registering my PA using the Upload Key assigned to that device automatically by WU, but that didn’t seem to work.
Interesting to find out if anyone else knows how to link to an existing WU account.
Also want to point out the WU sensor-ingest URL may not have a webpage to show if it’s just a data upload site, so may not necessarily be broken as suggested by @Farpointer.
@Ethan thanks, I did see that in the article but wasn’t clear if it was because the PA sensor setup didn’t support it, or if it was on the WU side. Hence why I tried setting up an “OTHER” device in WU first, using those credentials when registering my PA sensor. Seems like that’s the simplest route that requires the least disruption to the PA registration process. Good luck!
I just set up my sensor and did not see an option to connect to wunderground at all. Will my sensors data automatically show up on wunderground or do I first have to create an account there and then reinstall the app? Also for the other accounts like air now- does purple air automatically share data there or would I need to set up accounts to allow sharing? Appreciate clarification on the process for linking.
This is done during the registration of the sensor. You can re-register the sensor if you wish. Note the “Data Processors” screenshot in the article at the top of this page. That is where you will select Weather Underground as a third-party data processor.
I followed all the steps and my sensor is on the purple map, but it’s not showing up on the wunderground map. Does it take time for it to show up there?
We have seen instances where a single PurpleAir sensor will not appear in an area. We believe the WU algorithm occasionally causes this until it is corroborated by another nearby sensor.
It’s possible that the sensor may not show up due to WU’s algorithm for displaying sensors.
There is another sensor up the road on purple air- not sure if they connected to wunderground. A bummer as lots of folks in town were looking forward to being able to see local accurate pollution and temperature readings. Frankly, the purple air map with all its drop downs to access info is too time consuming for most people. Is there a way to contact wunderground to troubleshoot? Thanks!
Ok so my sensor shows up on wunderground if I look under air quality. It just doesn’t show any temp or humidity data. Maybe I am misunderstanding and it only shows air quality and doesn’t show any other parameters as I had assumed? Do I need to buy a different type of item to also log weather? Thanks again for any help!
Not all PurpleAir sensor owners opt-in to send sensor data to WU, so you will find many PurpleAir sensors missing from the Wunderground map.
In addition, WU seems to only use the air quality data from our sensors on their map. This may be because they support other weather stations that produce that data and due to the fact that the temperature readings in our sensors are meant for the sensors themselves. More information about this can be found here: PurpleAir Sensors Functional Overview
We’re open to your feedback about how to make our map more user-friendly. In the meantime, you might consider using one of the many third-party apps created by our users. A few of them can be found here: Q. Does PurpleAir have an app?
If I use the steps described at the top of this post to create a new WU Account, is there any way I can manage the new WU Account on the WU site? I’d like to be able to send other sensor data (temp, wind, etc.) it in the future.
