# Shade Compass — Track the Sun, Find the Shade!

> Sun and shadow tracking app with AR and celestial event notifications. (iPhone/iPad app by Ira Seferovich.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shade-compass/id6774860770 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Ira Seferovich](https://appshunter.io/developer/6774395008)
- Category: Utilities, Weather
- Price: $0.99
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 2 App Store ratings · 1 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 1.2 GB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-06-04
- Data updated: 2026-10-10
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shade-compass/id6774860770/reviews.md

## What is Shade Compass?

See where the sun will be, where your shadow will fall, and exactly where the shade lands — at any hour, at any spot on earth. Then keep going: garden planning, fishing and hunting windows, UV, air quality, tides, golden hour, and the night sky.

Point your phone and the live compass orients to the world around you. Sun direction and altitude sit right on the dial, your shadow is drawn opposite it at true length, and sunrise and sunset are marked at the exact bearings they cross the horizon — with times corrected for the ridge in front of you, not just the flat math horizon. Drag the time scrubber and watch the whole day play out — perfect for a campsite, a patio, a photo shoot, a garden bed, or the shady side of a trail.

SEE THE SHADE IN AUGMENTED REALITY
• Point the camera and watch the sun's real path trace across your actual yard
• Drop a tree, canopy, umbrella, vehicle, pergola, or solar panel and see its true cast shadow
• Play a sunrise-to-sunset time-lapse and watch the shade sweep the scene
• Tap any spot to read its hours of direct sun — today, or averaged across the year
• Scan the whole yard for a full sun-and-shade map (iPhone Pro models with LiDAR)

FOR THE GARDEN
• "What grows here" — plants scored against your hardiness zone, soil, and measured sun
• Frost-anchored planting windows: start indoors, direct sow, transplant, harvest
• Projected harvest date and frost margin before you commit to a seed
• Lock in a grow plan and push its reminders to your calendar in one tap
• Watering guidance from rainfall, evapotranspiration, and a running soil-water balance
• A household planner that sizes a garden to actually feed your family

FOR ANGLERS, HUNTERS, AND SURFERS
• Best Times windows for trout, bass, big game, birds, small game, and surf
• Built from sun and moon position, season, and light at your exact coordinates
• Fly hatch charts by region, lures with how to fish them, and a reading-water guide
• Knot library with step-by-step instructions and a 200-term field glossary
• Tides from NOAA harmonic data, plus buoy wave height, period, and direction
• River flow and water temperature wherever there's a gauge nearby

FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS AND STARGAZERS
• Golden hour, blue hour, civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight, and true dark
• Sunset quality scored from the cloud layers overhead before you drive out
• Starting exposure for the light you're in, plus light direction and polarizer guidance
• Moon phase, rise, set, and bearing; visible planets and an AR planet finder
• Milky Way, meteor, and aurora windows, with live Kp and solar activity

A WEATHER APP BUILT FOR BEING OUTSIDE
• Current, hourly, and 10-day, plus a 7-day strip you build from 23 metrics
• UV burn timer tuned to your skin type, with safer windows
• Air quality with a likely cause — wildfire smoke, ozone, a winter inversion
• Weather alerts, frost warnings, and a Lock Screen rain nowcast where available
• Thirty years of local storm history and the months that carry the most risk
• A plain-language read on whether today is actually worth going outside for

ON YOUR WRIST, LOCK SCREEN, AND HOME SCREEN
• Apple Watch app — dial, today, live conditions, and best times — plus complications
• Widgets for sun, shadow, moon, UV, and the day ahead
• Live Activities for golden hour, rain, UV burn, and your next prime window
• Ask Siri for a shade report anywhere

ANYWHERE, EVEN OFFLINE
• Sun, moon, shadow, planting, and every field guide compute on the device itself
• 32,000 cities offline, exact coordinates, dropped pins, saved places carried by iCloud
• Any date, past or future — plan an October trip, or compare June to December
• Month-by-month daylight hours, sun path, and bearings across the whole year

One purchase covers iPhone and Apple Watch. No ads. No accounts. No subscriptions. No tracking. No data collection. Just the sun, your shadow, and a straight answer about the day ahead. Frequent and Responsive updates for feature requests and bug fixes!!

## Key features

- Live sun and shadow visualization
- Augmented reality sun path
- Object shadow casting
- 24-hour time scrubber
- Golden hour and twilight alerts
- Moon and planet tracking
- Seasonal sun path analysis

## Recent user reviews (1 of 1)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shade-compass/id6774860770/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Simple and effective

*2026-06-18*

Highly recommend simple and effective. Good tool. Be nice to have widgets for this app.

## Frequently asked questions about Shade Compass

### What is Shade Compass?

Shade Compass is a utility app that visualizes the sun's position and your shadow's path throughout the day. It uses your device's sensors and GPS to provide real-time data and augmented reality overlays.

### How accurate is Shade Compass?

The app provides continuous updates for sun direction, altitude, and shadow length. It also includes sunrise and sunset times with exact compass bearings, and marks golden hour and blue hour windows precisely.

### Can I use Shade Compass for photography planning?

Yes, Shade Compass is ideal for photographers. It precisely shows golden hour, blue hour, and twilight times, allowing you to plan shoots for optimal lighting conditions.

### Does Shade Compass work offline?

The app uses GPS for location, which may require a signal. However, once location is set, many features like the time scrubber and AR visualizations can function without a constant internet connection.

### What devices does Shade Compass support?

Shade Compass is available for iPhone and Apple Watch, offering a versatile experience across your devices.

### How often is Shade Compass updated?

The latest version, 2.6, was released on June 24, 2026, indicating regular updates to improve functionality and add features.

### What is the price of Shade Compass?

Shade Compass is a paid app, available for a one-time purchase of $0.99.

### Does Shade Compass have ads?

No, Shade Compass does not contain advertisements, providing an uninterrupted user experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 3.1 — 2026-09-03

Fixed a Widget refresh bug.
Enhanced visuals of notifications.

### 3.0 — 2026-08-28

GARDEN AND GROW PLANNING (the most-requested feature by far)
- LiDAR Scanning of your yard to create accurate shade profiles and to allow automatic garden planning based on GPS location, season and growing goals (i.e. protein, specific    nutrient profiles, etc.)
- "What grows here" — every plant scored against your location's hardiness zone, soil, and available sun
- Frost-anchored planting windows: when to start seeds indoors, when to sow, when to expect a harvest
- Pick a plant and see its projected harvest date and frost margin before you commit
- Lock in a grow plan and add its reminders to your calendar in one tap
- A household planner that estimates how much to plant to feed your family through a season
-Rich, high resolution images of every growth stage of every plant

MAP THE SUN IN YOUR YARD
- Scan your yard with the camera and get a sun-and-shade map of the whole space (iPhone Pro models with LiDAR)
- Tap any spot to read its hours of direct sun — today, or averaged across the year
- Lay out garden beds on the map and see which ones actually get the light they need
- Place digital objects like fences, walls, trees, bushes, gazebos and more to ensure accurate year round shade calculations.

FIELD GUIDES
- Fly hatch charts by region and season, with the patterns that match them
- Bass fishing tips and seasonal awareness
- Lure reference with how to fish each one
- Knot reference with step-by-step instructions
- Gardening profiles for 117 common edible plants
- An edible plant library with sun, soil, spacing, and nutrition for each entry
- A 200-term glossary, tappable anywhere a term appears
- Full user manual

BEST TIMES
- Daily activity windows for the species you follow — fish, game, and surf
- Tide information when within 30 miles of a coastal sensor (Currently US only)
- Satellite or GPS location based water temperature sensing for accurate fishing hatch information
- Built from sun and moon position, time of day, and season at your exact location
- Optional alerts before a window opens

CONDITIONS THAT MATTER OUTSIDE
- Air quality with the likely cause — wildfire smoke, ozone, or a winter inversion — plus a map of nearby monitors
- National Weather Service alerts for your area
- Tides, currents, and surf conditions computed from NOAA harmonic data
- Water temperature from nearby river and lake gauges
- Aurora and meteor shower forecasts, plus an evening sunset-quality score
- Thirty years of local storm history and month-by-month risk for where you live

WIDGETS, LOCK SCREEN, AND WATCH
- Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets for sun, shadow, moon, and the day ahead
- A live golden hour countdown and rain nowcast on the Lock Screen
- The Watch app rebuilt around four pages — dial, today, live conditions, and best times

FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
- A live light meter with suggested exposure settings for current conditions
- Golden hour, blue hour, Milky Way, and true-dark windows on one timeline
- Sun and moon path arcs drawn directly on the compass dial

ALSO NEW
- A short setup questionnaire that tunes the whole app around when you actually get outside
- On device Apple Intelligence computes your daily outlook based on personalized Q/A
- Light, dark, or system appearance
- Saved locations now sync across your devices with iCloud
- A reworked home screen — one card for the day, with a timeline that reacts to whatever you tap
- Faster first load, more reliable weather refresh, and a long list of fixes from the last release

Still no ads, no accounts, complete data privacy and no tracking. Keep the requests coming!

### 2.6 — 2026-06-24

Updated screenshots and added promo videos.

### 2.5 — 2026-06-15

Expanded City picker
Fixed the Save functionality
Provided an educational guide to solar activity
Enhanced visuals and animations
Improved FPS and reduced CPU load in AR mode

### 2.0 — 2026-06-05

No release notes.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-10.*