CamSextant vs Sempervia
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CamSextant
This app functions as a celestial navigation tool, enabling users to take altitude measurements of celestial bodies using their phone. It provides real-time star and planet identification, automatic astronomical position calculations, and a perpetual nautical almanac.
- Celestial object altitude measurement
- Real-time star and planet identification
- Automatic astronomical position calculation
- Perpetual nautical almanac
- Audio star name and altitude announcement
- Horizon calibration
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CamSextant is the easiest celestial navigation tool. It allows taking altitudes of celestial objects, using your phone as a sextant. It is a complete celestial navigation solution, with instrument, nautical almanac and celestial calculator. Point a celestial object and tap the image to capture the altitude and time. Stars and planets shown on screen in real time. Show constellation names and lines. Identify planets and navigation stars (from Hipparchus 150 catalog). The program can also speak the star names and altitudes (audio). Astronomic Position (AP) is automatically calculated once you have two sights. Calculate your astronomical position with less than 10 clicks. Perpetual nautical almanac using Astronomical Algorithms ( book by J. Meeus). If you take altitude observations of the same object, the average time/altitude are shown. You can calibrate the sextant horizon by reading the sea horizon altitude. Note that the phone is more like a bubble sextant: you don't need the sea horizon to use CamSextant. Anyway, click [Calibrate] button to save the correction. Calibration angle is subtracted from raw sensor reading. If you have a marine sextant at hand, you can edit the altitudes captured by the phone and get serious celestial navigation work done. Translations for en, es, fr, it, pt ( program texts and voice ) For more information check: http://www.tecepe.com.br/nav/CamSextant/
Sempervia
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Sempervia is a cycling navigation app that guides you by sound, so your eyes stay on the road. Pick a destination and put on headphones. At every junction, the roads you could take are strummed as one chord: each note comes from the direction of its road, the costlier roads sound earlier and quieter, and the easiest route lands on the beat. You don't follow a line on a screen. You ride toward the sound that resolves. HOW IT WORKS • Routes by effort, not distance. Sempervia measures every route in the energy it takes you: climbing, road surface, air resistance and time, for your weight, height and pace. • Any road within your extra-effort allowance is a good choice. Set the allowance (20% by default) and the music offers every road that fits, ranked by effort. • The music answers your choices. Take the harder road and the key lifts and the strums quicken with the climb. Crest the hill and it resolves. Arrive and it comes home with a final chord. • A soft harmony always plays from straight ahead. It keeps you oriented, and tells you when head tracking needs a moment to re-center. • Offline maps, downloaded as you need them: Sempervia's own maps for the whole United States, the open BRouter maps elsewhere. No signal required to ride. • A heads-up minimap on your phone, Apple Watch and lock screen, with a dot on each road that flashes with its note. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT Turn-by-turn apps give you one route and interrupt you with instructions. Sempervia plays all the good routes at once as music, from where they are, so you can choose as you ride and never need to look down. Sempervia was the first navigation app to guide by spatialized music (August 2025), and 2.0 is the first to play every good route at once. It never gets louder, so you always hear traffic. WORKS WITH Any headphones. Spatial audio with head tracking on AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and recent Beats keeps each road's note fixed to the world as you turn your head. Apple Watch and Live Activities show the map and flash with the music. PRIVACY Routing, guidance and the effort map run entirely on your phone. No accounts, no analytics, no advertising trackers. Your location never leaves your device. QUESTIONS Is it free? Yes. Sempervia is free to download and use. Optional purchases may be added later. Does it work without a signal? Yes, once the map for your area is downloaded. Can I use it for walking or e-bikes? It is tuned for cycling, including e-bikes; walking works but the effort model assumes a bicycle. Where does it work? Anywhere OpenStreetMap has roads. Sempervia publishes its own offline maps for the whole United States; elsewhere it downloads the open BRouter maps. What does it sound like? Hear a ride through two corners at sempervia.com. Sempervia™ is a trademark of Aaron Deibele. Patent pending. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); elevation SRTM.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: CamSextant at every 5 months against Sempervia's every 14 months. CamSextant also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
CamSextant ships an update every 5 months, Sempervia every 14 months. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.
| Parameter | CamSextant | Sempervia |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (6 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months — better | Every 14 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Omar reis | Aaron Matthew Deibele |
In-app purchases
CamSextant
No in-app purchases
Sempervia
No in-app purchases








