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.