One sign of how bad the wildfires have gotten along the West Coast is that the newest must-have tech gadget there is a personal air quality sensor.

These devices send data on air quality to any smartphone or computer and, with wildfire smoke blanketing cities up and down the coast, manufacturers say demand is off the charts.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion we speak with Laura Bliss, a reporter with Bloomberg's CityLab. She reported on the rapid adoption of these devices in communities affected by wildfires and about the way they're responding to a desire for real-time data that federal regulators can't provide.

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