I can’t find a definition of the channel_state values. And for that matter, some of the other fields in the api such as confidence, and confidence_manual. Is there an api definitions lookup somewhere?
Hi @JerryN, thank you for pointing this out. We will work on updating our documentation.
The meaning of the “channel_state” value can be found here: How can we determine if/when one of the sensors is downgraded? Will it show in the data from the API, or will customer service reach out to us directly?.
The “confidence” value returns the confidence score of a sensor. The confidence score is a measure of how aligned the readings of its channels are. This value is available on the PurpleAir map by clicking on a sensor and checking the percentage that appears (only for sensors with two laser counters).
I believe “confidence_manual” parameter shows if a channel has been downgraded manually by a PurpleAir employee, but we will work on getting the definitions of the fields added to the documentation.
Ethan, I have attached a csv file I produced with some R code I wrote to download the data and then turn it into a more user-friendly form. At the link you sent the channel_flag field is what has the normal, A/B downgraded values so that’s what I put in the channel_flag column. channel_state seems to give the same information as location, 1 is inside, 3 is outside.
All the confidence fields are NA for inside monitors. The confidence, confidence_manual, and confidence_automatic appear to be identical when the reading is 100 but sometimes vary when the readings are below 100. Would be good to know what the differences are.
Happy to share the R code if you are interested.
Regards,
Jerry
(Attachment temp.csv is missing)