Open and Accurate Air Quality Monitors
We design professional, accurate and long-lasting air quality monitors that are open-source and open-hardware so that you have full control on how you want to use the monitor.
Learn Moreby Achim Haug on January 20, 2025
Leading AirGradient, and seeing our air quality monitors find their place in homes and schools worldwide has been an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s a journey deeply intertwined with the satisfaction of knowing we’re empowering individuals with crucial information about the air they breathe.
But as we’ve grown, one particular aspect of this journey has become a recurring focus of my thoughts: the weight of the one percent. These are the customers who, despite the best intentions of our team and my own personal involvement, remain unsatisfied with their air quality monitor. It’s a humbling and, at times, draining reality that prompts constant self-reflection on what it means to build these products and serve our community.
This isn’t an abstract problem for me; it’s personal.
Most escalated support tickets regarding our monitors land directly in my inbox. I personally handle a significant portion of these cases, pouring over customer concerns about data accuracy, integration issues, or setup challenges, crafting explanations, and often hopping on Zoom calls in an attempt to bridge the gap.
I invest a significant amount of time and energy trying to understand the customer’s perspective on how they use the monitor, their specific needs, and where our product falls short. And yet, despite this effort, there’s often a lingering feeling of failure. Some come to AirGradient with a specific application in mind for their air quality monitor that, despite our efforts at clear communication about its capabilities, our current design doesn’t quite meet.
Perhaps they envisioned it performing a function it wasn’t engineered for or integrating with a system we haven’t yet built compatibility with. Drawn to the open-source ethos, others naturally assume a level of bespoke support for their unique and often ingenious integrations of our monitors that stretch beyond our capacity. It shows the creativity of our community but also a point of frequent disconnect. And, of course, the inherent flexibility of our open platform for these devices carries a certain level of complexity that can, for some, feel like an unnecessary hurdle in getting their monitor up and running smoothly.
Thankfully, I’m surrounded by an incredibly dedicated team. Yehor, Sam, and Anastasiia on our development team are constantly working behind the scenes, improving our software’s user interface and experience and the setup process for our monitors, making AirGradient more intuitive for everyone. Their commitment to continuous improvement is invaluable.
Anika and Siriel from our science team are continuously providing accurate information regarding our air quality monitors, writing explanatory and educational articles that demystify the complexities of air quality monitoring and the nuances of sensor accuracy within our devices. Their work empowers our users with a deeper understanding of the data our monitors provide.
At the front lines, Ethan handles our first-level support with remarkable patience and dedication, providing personalized and often extensive support to countless users daily, guiding them through setup, troubleshooting data discrepancies, and helping them get the most out of their air quality monitors.
Beyond our core team, the vibrant energy of our community forum is a constant source of inspiration. It’s great to see the collaborative spirit of our users, who generously share their knowledge and help each other.
And yet, that 1% unhappy customer remains.
Despite the combined efforts of our team and my personal involvement with their specific issues, we sometimes reach an impasse. And that’s when we typically offer a full refund. While it ensures no one is financially burdened by an air quality monitor that isn’t the right fit, it doesn’t alleviate the feeling of not having met their needs.
Honestly, sometimes I question whether the sheer amount of time I dedicate to these cases is the most effective use of my time as CEO. My pragmatic side recognizes the limitations of scale and the importance of focusing on the broader user base for our monitors. But then, my inherent perfectionism kicks in – that deep-seated desire to not let anyone down when they’ve invested in our product. It’s a constant internal tug-of-war.
This experience has led me to some more profound, more philosophical questions about our air quality monitors and the people who use them. In the world of product building, is the pursuit of 100% satisfaction with our monitors an attainable goal, or is it a beautiful, yet ultimately elusive, ideal?
As creators, we pour our hearts and minds into building something we believe in, something we hope will be useful and valuable in measuring and understanding air quality. But the moment our monitors are released into the world, they encounter a vast and varied landscape of individual needs and expectations.
Where does our responsibility as creators of these devices end, and where does the user’s responsibility for understanding the technology and its limitations begin?
Are there inherent limitations in any creation, like our air quality monitors, that will inevitably lead to a small segment who find it doesn’t perfectly align with their unique requirements, no matter how hard we try?
However, I also recognize a significant positive side to this interaction with the 1%. Taking these concerns seriously, diving deep into their experiences, and understanding their unmet needs pushes us, as a team, to work incredibly hard to improve our products continuously. Through these challenging conversations and the sometimes painful feedback, we identify areas where we fall short, leading to tangible improvements in our air quality monitors and the overall user experience.
Some examples of where feedback from customers leads to significant improvements:
Looking ahead, how do we continue to learn and evolve from these experiences with the 1% and their interactions with our monitors? How can we better empower our community forum to become an even more robust resource for users seeking support and innovative solutions for their AirGradient monitors?
How do we further refine our communication to set realistic expectations about the capabilities and limitations of our air quality monitors while still celebrating the exciting possibilities of an open platform?
And perhaps most fundamentally, as a leader grappling with the dynamics of growth, how do I reconcile the desire for universal satisfaction with the finite nature of time and resources? These are the questions that continue to shape my thinking as we navigate the exciting and sometimes challenging journey of AirGradient.
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