Sunlight Checker vs Sunplot

Will your next home actually get sunlight? "South-facing" on the listing doesn't tell you what the buildings around it do to the sun. Sunlight Checker computes real sunlight hours for any address in Japan's major cities. Tap the map and it simulates the sun's path for all 12 months, using the Japanese government's official PLATEAU 3D city model to account for shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. PLATEAU reflects buildings as of the date they were surveyed, so buildings constructed or demolished since then may not be reflected — the results screen shows the survey year so you can judge. FREE FEATURES - Sunlight hours per month and yearly average, scored S to D - Floor selector — see how sunlight changes from the 1st to the top floor - Building details: height, storeys, zoning, building-coverage ratio, floor-area ratio, flood and landslide risk (PLATEAU attributes, availability varies by city) - Save up to 1,000 favorite locations - 3D map and satellite imagery - iPhone Duo support: unfold to see the details and the map side by side PRO FEATURES - Hourly timeline in 15-minute steps - 3D shadow visualization, with a one-line answer: does this floor get sun at the time you pick? - Direction filter (south-facing windows only, etc.) COVERAGE Tokyo 23 wards, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Saitama and other major cities. PRIVACY All computation happens on your device. Searched addresses are never sent to a server. Note: The app interface is currently Japanese only. The map and numeric results are easy to follow, and this page's screenshots show exactly what you'll see. Privacy policy: https://sunlightchecker.remosia.biz/privacy.html Terms: https://sunlightchecker.remosia.biz/terms.html Building data: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) PLATEAU, adapted (https://www.mlit.go.jp/plateau/)

Every seed packet says "full sun" or "part shade". Almost nobody knows which one their own garden is. Sunplot answers it with a number. Stand where the bed is, hold the phone up, and trace the roofs and trees around you with a finger. Then it walks the whole day a minute at a time and counts only the light that actually reaches that spot. WHY THE ANSWER IS DIFFERENT Other sun apps show you where the sun is. That is the easy half. The half that decides the answer is what stands in the way — the fence, the garage, the lime tree next door. Sunplot measures that skyline with the camera and subtracts it. A bed under open sky and the same bed behind a two-storey terrace are not the same bed, and the number knows it. FREE • Today's hours of direct sun at a spot, and what that means: full sun, part sun, part shade, full shade • What will grow there — 42 plants sorted into will do well, will manage, and too much sun • The map: where the sun arrives from, where it leaves, and where it is right now, with a slider through the day • The sky view: the sun's path drawn over the camera, and the skyline tracing that makes the answer real ONE PAYMENT UNLOCKS • The whole year at a spot — when full sun starts and ends, and the weeks it gets none at all • As many spots as you like — the bed by the fence and the bed by the garage answer differently • Which is better? Every spot side by side, ranked • A word before the sun arrives, so a short winter afternoon is not missed • The home screen widget One payment. No subscription, nothing renews, nothing to cancel. HONEST ABOUT WHAT IT KNOWS The compass in a phone can be badly wrong, and most sun apps draw a confident line anyway. Sunplot says so on screen when it does not trust its own reading. Before you have traced anything it labels the figure as open sky — the most the spot could get — instead of pretending to know. It is a gardening and planning tool, not a survey instrument. Check anything expensive against a professional measurement. NOTHING LEAVES THE PHONE No account, no server, no analytics, no third-party code, and nothing to sign up for. Everything is worked out on the device and stays there. It works with no signal at all. GOOD FOR Vegetable beds, borders and allotments. Balconies and window boxes. Greenhouses and cold frames. Roof pitches for solar panels. Working out which corner will take a shade planting, and which window a houseplant will survive.