Sun Surveyor Lite vs HollyView
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sun Surveyor Lite
This app helps photographers, filmmakers, and professionals visualize and plan around the sun's path. It predicts sunrise, sunset, and twilight times, and offers tools to understand light and shadows for optimal planning.
- Predict sunrise and sunset times
- Visualize sun's path
- Golden hour and blue hour planning
- Twilight time calculations
- Sun shadow information
- Visual time machine
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Sun Surveyor Lite takes the mystery out of the sunrise, sunset and magic hours, helping photographers and filmmakers scout the best locations, plan effectively, and get the perfect shot. Solar Industry (PV) Professionals, architects, real estate agents, and gardeners will also find a wealth of empowering, interactive features. The 3D Compass and detailed Ephemeris provide a wealth of information about the largest natural light source in the galaxy: - Predict and plan for the golden hour, blue hour and every sunrise & sunset - Visualize the sun's path throughout the day or through the year Additional features: - Visual time machine - take a quick glance at the light for a day, or dial in desired compositions easily - Twilight times - civil, nautical, astronomical - Solstice and Equinox visualization - Sun shadow information - calculate the length of shadows cast by objects - Magnetic declination compensation Check out the Full Version of Sun Surveyor for more: - Live Camera View - augmented reality projections of the sun and moon paths, pinpoint the time the sun or moon will be at a particular location in the sky - Interactive Map View - plan a remote shot or PV array placement, interact with a top-down perspective of sun and moon paths and events - Street View Panoramas - 360 degree spherical panoramas with selected sun, moon and milky way events overlaid, where available - Moon Information: moon position, moonrise, moonset, moon phases, apogee, perigee, distance and a Super Moon finder - Show clients the quality and quantity of seasonal sunlight at a remote location - Understand potential shade of surroundings and discover any obstructions - Create images of the summer and winter Solstice & Equinox paths for a site - Prepare night photography shots with the Milky Way & star trail features - Offline usage (excludes Map View, Street View) - enter coordinates, save & load locations with no data connection or GPS available - Measure distance, and difference between elevations, and vertical angle differentials with the Map view - Import and export Google Earth .kmz/.kml locations
HollyView
This app facilitates real-time wireless video transmission for monitoring and analysis. It allows users to doodle on images, record and share videos, and manage device firmware and diagnostics.
- Real-time monitoring
- Image analysis
- Photo doodling
- Video recording
- Firmware updates
- Device diagnostics
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HollyView is a wireless video transmission app by Shenzhen Hollyland Technology, enabling real-time monitoring, image analysis, photo doodling and sharing, video recording and sharing, firmware updates, and device diagnostics.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Sun Surveyor Lite at 79% against HollyView's 15%. Sun Surveyor Lite also leads on rating (4.1 vs 2.4). HollyView's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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.
Sun Surveyor Lite holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 2.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 37 and 74 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of Sun Surveyor Lite's written reviews are positive against 15% of HollyView's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sun Surveyor Lite | HollyView |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (37 ratings) — better | 2.4 (74 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 78.8% of reviews — better | 14.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 37 | 74 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 57 MB | 163 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Adam Ratana | 深圳市昊一源科技有限公司 |
Customer experience
Sun Surveyor Lite
HollyView
User reviews
Sun Surveyor Lite
From 37 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use UI
- 📸 Great for photography planning
- 🌳 Useful for planting/landscaping
- ☀️ Accurate sun tracking
- 📱 Responsive 3D projection
Room to improve
- 💰 Expensive pro version
- 📉 Lite version is very limited
- 🧭 Compass calibration issues
- ⚠️ Sun position inaccuracies
- 📱 Incompatible with some devices
HollyView
From 74 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Works for some users
- 👍 Good for client viewing
- 👍 Reliable with older versions
- 👍 Fast connection (sometimes)
Room to improve
- 🐛 App frequently crashes
- 🐛 Connection issues
- 🐛 Black screen on mobile
- 🐛 Updates break functionality
- 🐛 Poor device compatibility
Bugs and requests
Sun Surveyor Lite
Reported bugs
11 issues- Sun no longer appears where it should
- Sun direction is wrong indoors without GPS
- Sun is off by more than 10 degrees
- Sunrise time not working
- App crashes when selecting location
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Latest update stopped working
- Compass is always off
- Compass is reversed
- Lite version has an obscuring dialog box
- Map view is not working correctly
- App crashes on iPhone 5 iOS 7
Requested features
9 requests- Make the version free
- Move UI options
- Add dark mode
- Add day-length feature
- Add UV index
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Add sunrise alarm
- Fix time zone for Russia
- Allow user to move UI elements
- Offer a trial for the full version
HollyView
Reported bugs
40 issues- App not recognizing phone/iPad connection
- No feed when manually connecting
- App only works on older devices
- Black screen on iPad/Mac
- App won't connect after update
Show 35 moreShow fewer
- Firmware update fails
- Constant glitching and freezing
- WiFi issues
- Record button placement issue on iPhone SE
- New interface is clunky
- Cannot import LUTs
- App requires precise location
- No stream on iPhone 14
- M1 MBP not supported
- Stream address abnormal error
- Invisible text in stream setup
- App goes back to connect page
- Black screen after connecting
- Prompted to join HLD_null network
- Showing 'check input' error
- Random inbuilt LUT bug
- Screen goes black when applying installed LUTs
- App crashes and reboots iPad
- App quits randomly and reboots iPad
- Struggles with distance outdoors
- Prompts in Chinese characters
- Black bar over video stream
- App not working on iPhone 11 Pro Max
- App only shows signal strength, blank screen
- No internet connection error in WiFi option
- Check input source error on iPhone
- Resolution is 480p not 1080p
- App crashes constantly
- WiFi disconnects and app crashes
- Scanning QR code leads to system settings
- Manual code entry doesn't work
- Fix LTE WiFi issue
- App cannot connect when location/cellular disabled
- LUTs have strange purple coloring
- Laggy on iPad
Requested features
7 requests- Make auto brightness optional
- Hide iOS application bar
- True display out support
- Add remember serial number feature
- Allow deleting preset LUTs
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- De-squeeze option
- Add advanced functions like LUTS or contrast
In-app purchases
Sun Surveyor Lite
No in-app purchases
HollyView
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Sun Surveyor Lite free?
Is HollyView free?
Which has better reviews, Sun Surveyor Lite or HollyView?
Do Sun Surveyor Lite or HollyView have ads?
Which is updated more often, Sun Surveyor Lite or HollyView?
Other comparisons
