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Air Quality Monitor icon

Air Quality Monitor

Real-time air quality monitor for Korean cities (PM2.5/PM10)

Works on
Edge
Version
3.0.2
Add to Edge

Checking the fine dust level usually means picking up your phone and opening an app. This keeps the current PM2.5 reading for the region you chose on your browser toolbar, colored by grade and refreshed in the background.

Air Quality Monitor shows real-time air quality for Korean cities — PM2.5 and PM10 levels — right from your browser toolbar. Check the air before you head out, without opening a website or app.

Screenshots

What it does

  • Real-Time PM2.5 / PM10

    See up-to-date fine dust and ultrafine dust readings for your selected Korean city.

  • Toolbar Badge

    A color-coded badge on the extension icon shows the current air-quality grade at a glance (Good, Moderate, Unhealthy, Very Unhealthy).

  • City Selection

    Choose your region and the extension remembers it for next time.

  • Automatic Refresh

    Readings update in the background on a schedule so the number you see is always current.

  • Light / Dark Theme

    A clean popup that matches your preference.

When you'd reach for it

  • Deciding whether to open the window

    The sky looks fine, which tells you nothing about PM2.5. Glance at the badge on the toolbar icon: blue or green and the air is good or moderate, orange and it is in the unhealthy band. The number on the badge is the PM2.5 value itself, in micrograms per cubic meter.

  • Before you head out

    Open the popup and you get the PM2.5 reading with its grade in Korean and English, the name of the measuring station behind the number, and PM10, ozone and CO alongside it. The footer shows the measurement time from the data source and how long ago the extension last refreshed. That is usually enough to settle the mask question.

  • Keeping an eye on another region

    Your family lives in a different province, or you are traveling next week. The city list in the popup covers all 17 provinces and metropolitan areas, from Seoul and Busan to Gangwon and Jeju. Pick one and the reading and badge update immediately; the choice is remembered for next time.

How to use it

  1. 01Click the Air Quality Monitor icon in the Chrome toolbar.
  2. 02Select your city / region.
  3. 03See the current PM2.5 and PM10 readings and grade.
  4. 04The toolbar badge keeps you updated in the background.

Permissions & privacy

Single purpose

Air Quality Monitor has a single purpose: to display real-time air-quality data (PM2.5 and PM10) for a user-selected Korean city in a toolbar popup and badge. It fetches publicly available measurements, shows the current grade, and refreshes the reading periodically in the background. No data leaves the user's device beyond the request for public air-quality data.

storageAir Quality Monitor uses the storage permission to save the user's selected city/region, theme preference, and the most recently fetched air-quality reading using chrome.storage.local. Caching the last reading lets the popup and toolbar badge display a value instantly on open instead of waiting for a network request. All data is stored locally and is never transmitted to any external server.
alarmsAir Quality Monitor uses the alarms permission to schedule periodic background refreshes of the air-quality reading via chrome.alarms. A recurring alarm wakes the service worker at a set interval to fetch the latest PM2.5/PM10 values and update the toolbar badge, so the displayed grade stays current without requiring the user to open the popup. The alarm only triggers a data refresh — no personal data is accessed, stored, or transmitted.
http://apis.data.go.kr/*Runs only on http://apis.data.go.kr/*.

Air Quality Monitor only fetches publicly available air-quality data. Your selected city and preferences are stored locally in your browser. No browsing history, personal data, or location tracking is collected, stored, or transmitted. It runs only the code shipped inside the package — no remote code is fetched.

Questions people ask

How do I check Korean air quality from Chrome?

Click the toolbar icon and the popup opens on the region you selected. It shows PM2.5 as a large number with its grade, a scale marked at 15, 35, 75 and 150, the comprehensive air quality index, and PM10, O3 and CO in a row underneath. The refresh button in the header pulls a new reading on demand.

What do the badge colors mean?

They follow the Korean PM2.5 grades, in micrograms per cubic meter. Blue is 15 or below (Good), green is 16-35 (Moderate), orange is 36-75 (Unhealthy) and red is 76 or above (Very Unhealthy). A gray question mark means no number came back for that region.

Where does the data come from and how often does it refresh?

It comes from AirKorea's public air pollution API on data.go.kr, the same measuring-station network the official readings use. A background alarm refreshes on the interval you set in options — 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour, with 30 as the default. The popup footer shows the station's measurement time and how long ago the last refresh happened.

Do I need my own API key?

No. It works as soon as you install it. If you would rather use your own AirKorea service key, the options page has a field for it, and a link to request one from data.go.kr. When no key is set or the request fails, the popup falls back to sample values and marks itself with a DEMO tag so you know the number is not live.

Does it need my location or read my browsing?

Neither. You pick the region yourself from a list, so no location permission is requested. The manifest declares only storage and alarms, plus host access to a single address — apis.data.go.kr — which is the air quality API and nothing else. Your selected region, refresh interval and the most recent reading are kept in chrome.storage.local.

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