5 Air Quality Apps To Download Now and Protect Your Health

Last week, the hazardous air dominated the headlines, with wildfire smoke impacting much of the Upper Midwest, the Great Lakes, and the Northeastern United States, grounding outdoor plans and sending a whole region indoors.

At one point, it got about as bad as it gets anywhere: reports indicated that for a few hours that Thursday afternoon, a portion of Minnesota had the worst air quality in the world among major cities.

In Northern Minnesota, it was even worse. At one point, that area had the worst air quality in the world, surpassing 1,100 on the Air Quality Index.

I happened to have my annual guys' get-together at the cabin last week, that same weekend, and I kept pulling out my AirNow app from the EPA to check the number, both for our spot and back home.

I was surprised to discover that some of my friends had no idea that tool even existed. A few others used different apps I'd never tried. By the time we all left on Sunday after a fun weekend of golf, bags, tequila, and pull tabs, every single one of us had an air quality app on our phone to gauge conditions and protect our health.

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So with that in mind, I thought it'd be helpful to share five apps you can download to do the same. They're in no particular order, and you can click on each name to go straight to its own site where you can grab it.

AirNow (EPA)

This is the one I use, and it's the gold standard for a reason. AirNow is the U.S. government's own app, built by the EPA, pulling regulatory-grade data straight from official monitors.

It's free, simple, and gives you current conditions plus a forecast and health guidance. The EPA also runs a related tool, the Fire and Smoke Map, built specifically for events like last week. It blends official monitors with low-cost sensors and maps active fires and smoke plumes, so during wildfire season you may never need to leave the AirNow family.

IQAir AirVisual

If you want a strong companion to AirNow, this is it. IQAir is the same Swiss company whose world rankings put Minnesota at the top of the list last week. It's a UN Environment Programme partner, blends government sensors, private sensors, and satellite data, and offers a seven-day forecast. Reviews are excellent, and it's free and ad-free.

PurpleAir

PurpleAir shines when you want hyperlocal detail. Its map is packed with real-time readings from a dense network of neighborhood sensors so that you can see the air on your street rather than on a monitor across town.

One honest caveat: those are consumer-grade sensors, not official EPA equipment, so the numbers can run a little high. Great for a gut check, best paired with AirNow.

Plume Labs

For folks who find the data overwhelming, Plume Labs is the easy read. Its Air Report app offers hour-by-hour local forecasts in a clean, modern interface, and it's completely ad-free. Handy for planning a morning walk around when conditions are expected to be best, exactly the kind of call we were making at the cabin.

SEE NOW: What Breathing Hazardous Air Actually Does to Your Body

Windy.com

Our last pick is really a weather app, but that's the point. Windy layers air quality and smoke onto its animated maps, so instead of just seeing today's number you can watch the plume drift and get a feel for when it'll hit, or finally clear. That's something a plain AQI reading can't tell you, and it would've saved us some guesswork on Thursday.

The Bottom Line

No single app is perfect, but together they cover every angle: official data from AirNow, a global view from IQAir, street-level detail from PurpleAir, an easy forecast from Plume, and the moving picture from Windy.

My cabin weekend got saved by a wind shift and a little planning. A couple of free downloads mean the next smoke event won't catch you flat-footed either.