Support

Most issues with Smog Report come from one of three things: location permission, no nearby reference monitor, or a stale cached reading. The fixes below cover those, plus how to reach a human if none of them work.

Troubleshooting

The app says "Location not available" or won't auto-detect my city

iOS may have denied or revoked location permission. Open Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Smog Report and choose While Using the App (or Always if you want widgets to update in the background). Make sure Precise Location is enabled — without it, the app falls back to a much coarser city-level lookup that may pick the wrong station. After changing the setting, force-quit the app (swipe up from the App Switcher) and reopen.

It says "No nearby station" or shows no AQI for my area

Smog Report draws on reference-grade monitor networks — EPA AirNow in the US, OpenAQ across ~100 other countries, and national agencies like Singapore's NEA. These networks are dense in metro areas but sparse in some rural regions, and coverage varies by country. If no reference monitor reports within a reasonable distance of your selected location, the app intentionally shows a no-data state rather than guess. Try selecting a nearby city that has coverage; the reading won't be perfect for your exact spot, but it's usually directionally correct for the same airshed. For US coverage maps, see airnow.gov; for worldwide monitor coverage, see openaq.org.

The reading looks stale — it hasn't updated in hours

Most reference monitors publish new observations roughly once per hour, so stable conditions can produce the same reading for a while. Pull down on the dashboard to force a fresh fetch. If the timestamp still says hours ago, the upstream station itself may be temporarily offline — this is normal and usually resolves within a few hours.

My widget or Live Activity isn't updating

iOS controls how often widgets refresh based on usage patterns and Low Power Mode. Open the app at least once a day to keep widget refreshes high-priority. If Low Power Mode is on, widgets refresh less frequently. Removing and re-adding the widget can also nudge iOS to re-prioritize it.

The app crashed or is acting strangely

Force-quit (swipe up in the App Switcher) and reopen. If it persists after a restart of the device, please email us with your iOS version and a description — see the contact section below.

Reset and reinstall (last resort)

Deleting the app from your iPhone clears all locally stored saved locations and preferences. Reinstall from the App Store and grant location permission on first launch.

Reach a human

For bug reports, feature requests, or anything not covered above: hello@smogreport.com. Please include:

App Store reviews

If Smog Report has been useful, an App Store review meaningfully helps independent apps stay visible. Leave a review on the App Store. Critical reviews are also welcome — they go straight to our backlog.