Be Air Smart
Air Quality Sensor Program
Ready to Measure Air Pollution in your Area?
One of Air Central Texas’s (ACT) primary goals is to ensure that everyone in the region is ‘Air Aware’, which is the Air Central Texas way of saying educated on local air quality.
This program empowers Central Texans with the tools to better understand air quality by using a hyper-local outdoor particulate matter (PM) sensor that provides real-time information on air quality conditions.
ACT is currently siting sensors in collaboration with the City of Austin and other partner organizations, with qualifying sites including Government Agencies, Libraries, City Halls, Public Health Centers, and Public Schools located within the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA (Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties).
If you don't qualify as one of the groups above, you may qualify for our air sensor loaner program (see table below).
Sign up for an air sensor here!
Hyper-Local, Real Time Data For Everyone!
About the Sensors
The Be Air Smart program uses air quality sensors that provide real-time PM concentrations data made publicly available online. At a minimum you will need:
- Secure Location Outdoors
- Stable Power Source
- Reliable Wi-Fi Connect
The following videos provide more information on the two available air quality sensor and gives tips for installation.
Air Sensor Requirements
Potential Sensor Use Cases
Environmental Education & Awareness
- Provide children, parents and concerned citizens with a tool to better understand the air they breathe
- Create projects for students to become familiar with air quality
- Educate students and the community on the importance of caring for their environment
Environmental Health
- Learn if there is an air quality issue and take steps to improve it
- Measure PM levels at your location to track when PM levels are higher or lower
- Study PM levels over time – Learn if PM levels are improving or deteriorating
Terms of Use
To be eligible to use an air quality sensor, users must agree to the following conditions:
- Only use the sensor for its intended purpose of measuring local outdoor PM concentrations
- Agree to operate the sensor continuously while sensor is on loan
- Agree to install and register the sensor yourself
- Agree to check that the sensor is reporting and to rectify any reporting issues
- Agrees to inform Air Central Texas (ACT) if the location of the sensor changes or if the contact representative changes
- Use for the sensor is valid for the set lease agreement. At the end of the term, the sensor and any associated items will be returned. This agreement may be renewed upon approval by the program and the User.