Air Now

Inspiration

One of my family members has asthma, and after multiple summers of forest fires and watching the air quality daily to determine what outside and physical activities would be okay, I created this skill to simplify checking the current air quality.

What it does

It uses the government's Air Now api to get the latest air quality data for a specific US place, city and state.

How I built it

I wrote javascript to handle the voice interaction phrases and look up the zip code for a named place. I had learned that the phone apps, that I previously I would use for air checks, used the AirNow data or api, and so I found and set up access to the same api.

Challenges I ran into

The voice interaction was difficult to debug for a first-time skill writer. I needed to know the user's requested location to check. The AirNow api requires a zip code, and I did not want to require the user to register their personal data with the skill. So I had to find how to lookup a location and get the correct zip code.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Despite not registering a user's private data, using the skill is simple and quick enough for daily use.

What I learned

Speech interaction is not simple to program.

What's next for airnow

I would like for the skill to allow a user to register personal information to store a location to check each day and provide that information as a card for daily flash update. I would like for the skill to cache requested location data to reduce repeat api call counts. I would like for the skill to provide an alexa-show graphic of the air quality map for the requested location.

Built With

• lambda
• node.js
• www.airnow.gov