SharkSmart

NSW Dept Primary Industries & Regional Development

About this app

Enjoy NSW beaches. Be SharkSmart

Check the latest sightings by Surf Life Saving drones and tagged shark detections before you hit the water in NSW. A better awareness and understanding of sharks and their behaviour can help everyone enjoy the beach and reduce the chances of a shark encounter.

The SharkSmart app provides information and resources such as Alerts to help you reduce the chance of a close encounter with a shark at NSW beaches and estuaries.

Stay SharkSmart with our app.

Maps
The Maps feature shows where the user is in relation to the general location of beaches with shark mitigation gear, alerts about shark-related incidents and news and real-time information from NSW’s VR4G tagged shark listening stations. Beachgoers can download the app and set it to receive tagged shark alerts at certain times and locations.

Wear OS compatible
If you have a smart watch running Wear OS by Google, the SharkSmart App also comes with a companion smart watch app to receive SharkSmart alerts. These alerts can be viewed by your location with the “around me” feature or set up to receive alerts for a region, by time or favourite beaches. This is a companion app so it is necessary for the watch to be in sync with sharksmart phone app.

Species
This feature presents images of dangerous and non-dangerous sharks and other marine animals that sting and bite for information and education purposes.

Social Media
The app has links to official NSW Department of Primary Industries social media channels including Facebook, NSW SharkSmart Twitter and YouTube. There’s also a link to the Department’s SharkSmart webpage so users can be up to date with the latest information provided by the department.

Information
Details about the NSW Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program are provided.

My Risk
It provides a range of interactive features and resources including a fundamental risk assessment profile that allocates a user into a ‘risky’ or ‘safer’ behaviour rating using factors understood to affect shark bite risk. Risk rating escalates higher or lower subject to the input of the user (e.g. swimming at sunrise or dawn would increase the risk). The risk level can be reduced by adjusting risky behaviour but never eliminated (unless the user doesn’t go in the water)

Other Safety Programs
The NSW Government hosts, supports and/or promotes a range of other water safety programs. Links to key programs are provided so user can get the most out of NSW beautiful waterways while staying safer.

Ratings and reviews

Does not deserve the label "smart". Poor design, forgets my settings, notifications don't work.

what an absolutely useless app. can't believe how bad it is. can't load any of my local beaches. just get rid of it. what a waste of money

The app has potential, but it's not really addressing user needs. I would suggest that you include coloured pins that indicate shark activity, (ie red/amber/blue), and also list "last detection", if any. Should also report actual shark attacks even if it's outside of supervised beaches. Reporting that a beach is not going to be patrolled is not really helpful, and should be less prominent. Surfers want to know last patrol and the most recent sitings. The app should also request location and start on my location. If not near a beach, just set a default location as it does now.

What’s new

Adds remote version checks at launch with configurable prompts and store links so users stay on supported builds.