Guide on How to Use the Airwareness Support App
Table of Contents
Introduction
Air Support Project’s Airwareness Support App can be used to assess and mitigate indoor air quality risks. You can use it to estimate transmission risks and visualize performance of your ventilation system, air purifiers, and masks in your own custom spaces including classrooms, homes, schools, and workplaces. You can even use it to help you pick out the number, types, and combinations of purifiers needed, or see how ones you currently have perform.
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Check out this step-by-step guide to using the Airwareness App with color-coded input settings, examples of ways to use the app, and notes on app outputs to pay special attention to as you run your own customized simulations.
Our color-coded guide
Airwareness App Input Categories
Required Inputs Needed
Optional Inputs
Not Recommended Changing These Inputs Without Expertise
Key outputs (what the App tell you) to pay attention to:
- Pathogen Tile: Shows Transmission Risk at the Current Time
- Room Settings Tile: Visualize Infectious Doses (as red dots)
- Pathogen Risk Trend Window shows the Transmission Risks Mapped Over Time in a graph
- Airflow Tile: Shows Total Airflow (as ACH and CFM per person)
January 15th Risk Trend Window Update: “Risk Trend” window now displayed in its own tile (instead of in the bottom corner of the Room Tile in the pictures throughout this blog), and is labelled Pathogen Risk. You can now also view CO2 (carbon dioxide, the air we exhale) as it builds up over time, with healthy levels recommended to be below 1000 ppm. You can view more on why CO2 is an important metric to watch in our blog: Poor Ventilation: Understanding CO2 and its Impact on COVID-19 Infection Risk. PM2.5 (particulate matter that is under 2.5 um) can also be viewed in this window. You can learn more about PM 2.5 Pollution in our blog: What Is PM 2.5?
The image above shows the main Airwareness App Window. Note: To reset ALL application data to its original defaults, click the 🟧Reset Application Data button at the top right (circled in red). This will clear out all of the information you put in from all tiles: Room Settings, Pathogen, Occupants, Airflow, and Purifier.
Room Settings Tile
The Room Settings Tile (default room name is Classroom 1) is the largest tile on the screen, which shows an image of the room as it runs through your simulations. It contains the following parameters:
Time Option: Your simulation time will start as soon as the app is opened in your browser, and infectious doses of COVID-19 will start to appear over time based on the default settings. In most cases, you will want to 🟨reset the timer to start at 0 after entering or changing your inputs to get an accurate simulation based on those inputs. To reset the timer, click the circle arrow to the left of the time.
One situation you wouldn’t want to reset the time after is if you were using the 🟧vacate room button (the person running image to the right of the time, which represents the infectious person/people leaving the space). This button is commonly used to see how long your airflow will take to remove all infectious doses in the room after the infectious person has left the room (the estimated purge time). In this case, you would not reset the time after pushing the vacate room button, as you would want the infectious doses accumulated over the length of time they were in the space to remain. Instead, you should take note of the time you pushed the vacate room button, as well as the time once the infectious doses are all cleared. Subtract them to determine your 🟩estimated purge time (the time it takes for all the infectious doses to clear).
You can make the time speed up faster by hovering over the time and then adjusting the 🟧speed multiplier. The higher the numbers of the multiplier, the faster it will fast forward the time. Remember to move the speed multiplier back down to 1 once you are close to the time you want to observe risks at.
Example Using Speed Multiplier: If you want to determine the transmission risks of your simulation after two hours, after inputting all your custom settings in all tiles, click the reset timer button to the left of the time. Then hover on the time, making the speed multiplier appear underneath it.
Click fast forward on it (the numbers represent how fast it will speed up, with higher numbers making the speed go by faster. Slow it down as you approach two hours, and then once it gets to two hours, move the speed multiplier all the way back down to 1. Take note of the transmission risk and number of red dots (infectious doses) in the room. You can compare these risks at different airflow rates and masking settings, as we did in our blog: Using the Airwareness App for Accessibility in Classrooms and Beyond.
🟧Fixed Time: If the settings you would like to minitor will be stable over the time you can move the fixed time toggle and type in the amount of time you would like the simulation to move forward. For example, type in 2.0 hours and you can see what the transmission risk of the room is in two hours.
Room Name: By clicking on the Wheel 
icon you can rename and/or add new rooms to run simulations in. The default is labelled Classroom 1.
Height of ceiling:____________ feet. We have our default set to 10 feet, common in classrooms. Adjust to your setting.
Floor Area: Size of room (length multiplied by width):__________ ft2 . We have our default set 900 ft2, (30 by 30 feet), an average classroom size. You can replace it with your space’s area by multiplying the floor space length by the width, in feet, and entering it here.
Risk Trend Window: This window is at the bottom left of the Room Settings Tile, and tracks your transmission risks over time based on your inputs. You can hover over it for a more detailed view. Risks tend to increase over time because viral aerosols accumulate over time, and the longer an infectious person is in a room with uninfected individuals, the higher the risk of transmission will be. Adding higher airflows, or having an infectious person leave, will reduce risks. To see the risk at the current moment in time, view the Pathogen Tile.
Room Image: The room image will allow you to visualize infection risks and the effects of increased airflow mitigations over time, with each red dot in the room representing an infectious dose of COVID-19. As the app runs over time, these infectious doses increase based on the custom inputs, such as occupancy, and will clear out based on other inputs, such as your airflow.
Pathogen Tile
The Pathogen Tile will list the pathogen name/variant and will update the transmission risk automatically over time based on the parameters you have entered in the other app categories.
As we stated earlier, our app uses red dots to represent infectious doses of COVID-19, determined by studies of different variants. The default pathogen variant is set to SARS-CoV-2, Omicron. Select “Edit Pathogen” to change the 🟥pathogen variant, 🟥positivity rate (default: 4.35%, with a minimum of 1 infectious person), 🟥infectious doses per hour (q value) (default: 725), and 🟥half-life (in minutes) (default: 60). However, we do not recommend changing these values unless you understand what they mean, as it is an advanced feature.
🟧Aerosol Generation Activity Level: The aerosol generation activity level significantly affects transmission risk, following a power law model. For instance, singing will significantly increase transmission risks as compared to breathing, because studies show it produces drastically more aerosols. Our model is based on the study: Estimation of airborne viral emission: Quanta emission rate of SARS-CoV-2 for infection risk assessment, which shows that vocal activities progressively increase infectious particle emission, from minimal levels during🟧rest and 🟧normal breathing, through 🟧speaking and 🟧loud speech, up to peak emissions during 🟧singing. Our default is set to 20%, midway between “resting” and “speaking”. However you can modify this activity at any point in time, for as long as you’d like, to see its effect on transmission over time in your simulation.
Occupants tile
Occupants: 🟨____________ ( the expected number of people in the room). We have the default set at 23, the average classroom size, with it split into 2 default groups: 🟨teacher (default: 1), and 🟨students (default: 22).
To customize, click on the group, or click the plus button to add a group, or the minus button to delete a group. You can adjust the 🟧group name, 🟨number of people, and 🟧average age. This granular approach enables more accurate risk assessments by accounting for different occupant demographics and their varying susceptibilities to airborne transmission.
You will also see an “Infected” category that does not get a number of people (the number of infected individuals will be based on the percent positivity rate of the virus, which is an advanced option in the Pathogen Tile). The infected group is there to allow app users to adjust whether you want your simulation run with the 🟧infected person masking (commonly called source control masking).
You can also adjust your 🟧uninfected groups’ masking situation (commonly called wearer protection).
Studies illustrate that source control alone is more effective than wearer protection alone, and that universal masking is the most effective. All groups can be adjusted by masking rate (percent of people masking), mask type (cloth, surgical, N95, P100), and adherence (percent of how well people are masking throughout the time in the classroom). Our default setting does not have anyone masking. To customize, click on the group to adjust the masking parameters.
In this example (Image 3), we adjusted the masking parameters for the “Students” group. We chose a masking rate of 50%– which means half of the class (11 students in this case) are masking. We indicated that they are wearing N95/KN95 masks by sliding the filtration bar to 95% (note that the masks change color from white to light blue as you slide the filtration bar to the right). And we chose an adherence rate of 75%, indicating that they were wearing their masks correctly for 75% of the time they were in the classroom.
You can adjust the masking situation for each group you add in the occupants tile. When you run your simulation, you will notice that masks can make a significant difference in transmission risks.
Airflow tile
The Airflow Tile can be adjusted to show the performance of your central ventilation system and portable air purifiers, using Equivalent Air Changes per Hour (ACH) and Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM).
What is Equivalent Air Changes per Hour (ACH)??
Equivalent air changes per hour (ACH) is a measure of how many times the air in the room is replaced with fresh or filtered air, per hour. It is commonly used to measure the airflow performance of ventilation systems and portable purifiers. In our app, the Equivalent ACH will be split between how many ACH you get from your central ventilation system, and how many ACH you get using portable purifiers. We do not have a feature to measure ventilation from open windows at this time, although they can contribute to your ACH.
Air Support Project recommends between 6 to 12 ACH, leaning toward higher ends in more crowded environments and/or when social distancing cannot be achieved. 6-12 ACH is also recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), the Industrial Ventilation Committee, and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), in their “Ventilation for Industrial Settings During the COVID-19 Pandemic” (2021). It is also consistent with ASHRAE’s recommendations for classrooms in Standard 241, Control of Infectious Aerosols (2023) in which their recommendation of 40 cubic feet per minute per person translates to 6-12 ACH in the average sized classroom with 23 occupants. The CFM per person is listed below Air Changes per hour in the Airflow Tile.
What is CFM per person?
Underneath your Equivalent ACH you will see a value called CFM per person, which also updates automatically and is based on the equivalent ACH as well as the number of occupants you input. What does this mean?
CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) refers to the volume of air moved by a ventilation or filtration system every minute. Like ACH, it is a standard measurement used to quantify airflow efficiency in a given space. However, unlike ACH it is able to further customize airflow based on the number of people in the room. ASHRAE Standard 241 uses CFM per person instead of ACH, and has recommendations for different types of rooms. You can compare your CFM per person listed in the app to the ASHRAE Standard 241 recommendations listed in this table, in a room category that best matches your setting.
Notice that rooms such as gyms have higher CFM per person airflow recommendations than places like classrooms. ASHRAE’s recommendations are based on the activities done in the setting, density of people in the setting, and other factors that influence transmission risks.
Central Ventilation System ACH: 🟨____________ ACH.
Note: Our default is set to 1 ACH, common in many classrooms, although typically not sufficient for providing good air quality. Most HVAC (central air conditioning and heating systems get 1 ACH). Enter 1 unless you were provided with a different amount from your HVAC specialist.
Air Purifier Units ACH: 🟨_______________ ACH.
**This option will only appear here once you add a purifier in the Purifier Units Tile**
After selecting 1 Smart Air Blast Mini Purifier Unit in the Air Purifier Panel, the ACH of 2.9 appear, since this model’s performance in this size room gives this ACH (actual Air Purifier ACH). It brings our total up to 3.9 eACH, and 25 CFM per person. We want this value to be higher, and reach 6 ACH. We want our purifier ACH to be at least 5 ACH (target ACH).
For your simulation’s Air Purifier Unit’s ACH, you can either:
1- Use this feature to see what the ACH of the purifiers you input into the Purifier Units Tile are (your actual ACH). If you choose this option, the ACH will automatically update after you input your purifier units, and you do not need to adjust it.
or
2- Use this feature to determine the number and types of purifiers you will need to reach a target purifier ACH. For instance, if you want to reach our minimum recommendation of 6 ACH, and you get 1 ACH from your central ventilation, you will want at least 5 ACH total target ACH from portable purifiers. You can either get these all from one purifier type, or by using a combination of different purifier types.
Target Air Purifier ACH Example: First, you will need to choose a purifier type from our list of purifiers in the Air Purifier Units Tile (see Image 6, left picture). We chose the Smart Air Blast Mini. You can also enter information from your own purifier, or select multiple different purifiers (see Purifier Tile section below for instructions on how to do that). Then come back to the Airflow Tile, and you will see that purifier listed in the Airflow Tile window (see Image 6, right picture). Each purifier type you add will be displayed here, along with the actual ACH one of those units gets. However, since we want to reach a Target ACH you will need to adjust this ACH amount here manually by clicking the plus to increase the ACH of the unit until you reach your target ACH (in our example, a minimum of 5 ACH). Note: It will move up incrementally based on the unit’s actual ACH (which is why our unit stopped at 5.8 ACH instead of exactly at 5 ACH). When you increase the ACH here, the number of units of this type of purifier will update automatically in the Purifier Units Tile (see Image 15 below). Click off the pop up window to go back to the main app window and then view the Purifier Units Tile. You will see the number of this type of unit that you will need in order to reach your target purifier ACH. You can do this for multiple types and combinations of purifier units by repeating this process.
Purifier Unit tile
**It is only required to input values in this tile if you have portable air purifiers or want to test simulations to see the effect of portable air purifiers. **
To Add A Purifier From Our List:
When you click the plus button on the air purifier tile, you will see a purifier from our list automatically load. Click on it, and a window will open allowing you to change the purifier model, and edit parameters/view specifications.
Click on the air purifier’s name in the “Air Purifier Model” section to change the model to another on our list. Click “Edit Parameters” underneath it to see the specifications for the model you chose, such as the CADR, cost, and sound volume. All these values are from the manufacturer’s information, and are for your reference. They are the values that are used to determine the Daily Operation, Monthly Average, and Annual Totals readings in this tile. If you want to choose it, simply click off the pop up window to get back to the main app.
To Add Your Own Air Purifier:
If you want to add your own model, from the main window click the plus button on the air purifier tile and then in the pop up window click the plus button next to “Air Purifier Model”, and it will now say “New Air Purifier”.
Then click on “Edit Parameters” to change the name and CADR of your model. Be sure to update the CADR option to what your purifier manufacturer lists as the CADR in CFM [cubic feet per minute (f3/m)]. Note that many manufacturers list CADR by CMH [cubic meters per hour (m3/hr)]. If it is listed as CMH, you can convert it to CFM using the CMH to CFM converter here.
Once you put the name and CADR (in CFM) for your custom unit, the Airflow Tile will update automatically with the purifier’s ACH. Optionally add other specifications of your purifier to get accurate Daily Operation, Monthly Average, and Annual Totals readings in this tile. Once you are done, simply click off the window.
If you would like to add another purifier, click the plus button. If you would like to delete a purifier, click the minus button.
Running simulations
Once you set up all your inputs in your room, you can run a simulation. Remember to reset the timer by clicking the circle to the left of the time. You will now see infectious doses appear in real time. Recall you can speed this up using the speed multiplier to reach a time you would like to observe. Take note of the transmission risk in the Pathogen tile over different times. You can create a screenshot of the interface. Once you find a performance and know what purifiers you need to reach it, you can purchase and set up your portable purifier units.
Setting Up and Running Purifiers
Once you pick out your purifier units, place them in your setting spaced out from each other, ensuring their airflow is not obstructed by furniture or walls. Run at the highest setting where sound is tolerable. In between classes, or when it is not disruptive, run the purifiers on highest settings to assist with purging. Follow manufacturer instructions for cleaning, maintenance, and filter replacement.
In combination with the portable purifiers, we recommend using natural ventilation (such as opening windows) or mechanical ventilation (if available) when possible (such as between classes, or a few times a day). Bringing in fresh air and letting out stale air (ventilation) is important because it prevents the build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas we exhale, in the room. Since CO2 is not cleared out using filtration (it is too small for filters to capture) and higher levels of CO2 can cause negative health impacts, opening windows when possible is a good idea. However, if the air quality outside is not good due to wildfire smoke or as indicated by outdoor air quality standards, keep windows closed.
Conclusion
Clean, healthy indoor air is far more than a matter of comfort—it is a human right and a fundamental accessibility issue. When we commit to providing clean air, we empower people of all abilities and health statuses to learn, work, and gather without the fear of airborne hazards limiting their potential. By using the Airwareness App and following the guidance in this manual, you are joining a broader movement toward inclusive, safe spaces where everyone can breathe freely.
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Thank you for joining us on the frontiers of clean indoor air technology, as we develop new tools and educational materials that can make clean air accessible for all! You can check out our blog: Getting the Recommended ACH with More Affordable Fan-and-Filter Models to take a closer look at how more affordable MERV 13 fan-and-filter purifiers compare to HEPA purifiers as room cleaners, and discover the models available now and coming in the future.
Through continued innovation, education, and community support—such as Air Support Project’s commitment to developing affordable fan-and-filter air cleaners—we can bring high-quality indoor air within reach for all.
You can also learn more about Air Support Project’s mission and progress, including the progress on our affordable commercialized fan-and-filter air cleaner (now in prototyping phase), in our Q3 2024 Update here. If you would like to donate to our project, and be part of our movement to bring clean air and safer spaces to all, visit our donation page here. Together we can make a difference!
Ensuring high-quality indoor air is not just a matter of health—it’s a crucial accessibility issue. Clean air enables individuals of all abilities and health statuses to participate fully in education, work, and community life without fear of airborne hazards. By prioritizing indoor air quality, we are taking a significant step toward creating inclusive, safe spaces where everyone has the right to breathe easy.
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SHEA O'NEIL
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Creator of COVID-conscious advocacy works: writings, art, and social networking. BA degree in psychology, with over 11 years of continued education studies in allergy and autoimmune research, and continued research the past 3 years into airborne irritants and COVID-19. Parent, disabled rights advocate.
Sarah Masih, MD, MBA
Sarah Masih is the Executive Director of Air Support Project and has extensive experience in project management, fundraising, and communications. Her deep commitment to public health and her collaborative approach with community organizations and health experts make her a vital force in the fight for cleaner air and healthier communities.
Melissa Smallwood
Melissa Smallwood is Science and Technology Policy researcher with a background in neuroscience, psychology, and social science, and the author of The Future of Long COVID: A Threatcasting Approach. They are interested in how disability and healthcare justice intersect with emerging technologies, and are an advocate for COVID mitigation strategies to help end the pandemic.
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Fueling a revolution for cleaner air, I'm the creative powerhouse behind the Air Support Project's groundbreaking open-source technology. With a fiery passion and a rich background in non-profits, I'm on a mission to clear the skies and transform lives worldwide.
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