SolarMark vs CairnOS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SolarMark
Monitor your solar power generation and battery storage systems locally and privately. Visualize real-time energy flow, get intelligent predictions, and receive protection alerts without relying on cloud services.
- Direct Modbus TCP polling
- Live power flow dashboard
- Multi-device infrastructure management
- Localized weather-based generation predictions
- On-device analytics ledger
- Open data export (CSV)
- Protection alerts (no-generation, performance, thermal)
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Take complete local control of your green energy infrastructure with SolarMark—the ultimate privacy-focused telemetry engine designed explicitly for solar power generation and battery storage systems. Unlike standard cloud platforms that lock your history behind proprietary servers, SolarMark establishes a direct, secure line to your hardware using local Modbus TCP polling. No third-party accounts, no remote data centers, and zero internet tracking dependencies required. REAL-TIME ECOSYSTEM MONITORING • Direct Modbus TCP Polling: Pull telemetry straight from your inverters and battery systems every 5 seconds. • Live Power Flow Dashboard: Instantly visualize generation metrics, grid imports, grid exports, and real-time utility currency valuation flows. • Multi-Device Infrastructure: Seamlessly configure and manage multiple independent inverters and standalone battery installations. INTELLIGENT PREDICTIONS & ANALYTICS • Localized Weather Gating: Synchronize system coordinates with local Open-Meteo irradiance data to generate automated daily generation predictions. • SQLite Analytics Ledger: Securely store lifetime energy metrics, battery state-of-charge curves, performance tracking, and voltage anomalies directly on your device. • Open Data Freedom: Extract energy histories and localized telemetry logs at any time using filtered, uncompressed CSV schema layers. SELF-CALIBRATING PROTECTION ALERTS • No-Generation Alarms: Receive automated system warnings if your hardware fails to initialize or generate power during standard daylight profiles. • Performance Threshold Vetting: SolarMark dynamically maps 30 days of production data to calibrate and alert you if real-time sunlight conversion loops drop below 40% efficiency. • Battery Thermal Shielding: Three independent detection layers monitor and instantly alert you of uncharacteristic voltage shifts or active thermal volatility spikes. FINANCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CLEARANCE • Track absolute localized financial tracking metrics with an integrated multi-currency picker (£ $ € ¥ A$ C$). • Toggle your sustainability output dashboards dynamically between metric tons of CO₂ offset or real-time equivalent trees planted. Keep your home data inside your local network. Secure your infrastructure, maximize your grid efficiency index, and download SolarMark today!
CairnOS
Communicate off-grid using a mesh network of radios. Send messages, monitor network status, and explore maps without cell service or internet. Features include direct messages, channels, and on-device translation.
- LoRa mesh network communication
- Direct messages and channels
- On-device message translation
- Network status dashboard
- Offline map downloads
- Message signing and verification
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Cairn is a companion app for MeshCore LoRa mesh radios. Pair your radio over Bluetooth or WiFi and send messages through a community-built network of radios and repeaters, with no cell service, no internet and no account. MESSAGING - Direct messages, channels and room servers in one inbox, with filters - Public, private and hashtag channels; share or join a channel by QR code - Delivery status, with retry for failed sends - Emoji reactions, @mentions, forwarding, search and text selection - Path details for each message: every hop on a list and a map - On-device translation of incoming messages - Chats kept on a Cairn touch radio come over to the app when you pair - Block contacts or channel senders, filter keywords and mute conversations - Optional link previews, with a warning for known malware links DASHBOARD - Battery, network, radio, GPS, contacts and chats at a glance - Sunrise and sunset for your position and the radio's temperature sensor - Radio presets by region, or set frequency, bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate and TX power yourself NODES & REPEATERS - Saved and heard nodes, with search, sort, filters and a card or list layout - A page for every node, with a map, readings and quick actions - Log in to your repeaters and room servers to see status, telemetry, neighbors and an SNR map, then change settings, access lists and regions or use the remote CLI - Send commands to your own companion radios over the mesh (MeshCore 1.18 firmware) - Telemetry history charts kept on your phone - Contact groups, QR sharing and a manual path editor SPECTRUM - Live noise floor and packet traffic on your frequency - Signal margin, airtime share and packets per minute - With a Cairn radio: the radio's own Channel view, with its trace, density heat map and 24-hour noise floor MAPS & GPS - Mesh map with standard, satellite and topographic layers - Live traffic layer: the links packets crossed lately, and each new packet as it arrives - Download map regions for offline use - Radio and phone GPS side by side, with a compass and a navigation HUD that points the way to any node TOOLS - Network Health, Scan for Nodes, Trace Path, Line of Sight with terrain and Fresnel zone, RX Log and a CLI terminal - Sign and verify messages with your radio's identity IN THE CAR & AROUND iOS - CarPlay: a dashboard of your radio, mesh, messages and location, a GPS page, and messages you hear and answer with Siri - Siri and Shortcuts: check radio status, send a message or send an advert - Live Activity and Dynamic Island with connection, battery and unread count - Multiple windows on iPad MAKE IT YOURS - Choose a color, gradient or photo background with glass cards over it - Give any node a photo or a color: its type's color, one of twelve shades or any color you pick - Backup and restore, plus CSV and GPX export PRIVACY Your messages travel radio to radio. Cairn has no accounts, no analytics and no developer server. Nothing is sent to the developer. REQUIREMENTS Requires a LoRa radio running MeshCore companion firmware, connected over Bluetooth or WiFi. Maps, link previews and Line of Sight elevation use the internet when it is available. Requires iOS 18 or later. Cairn is free and open source software under the GNU GPL v3, built on the work of the open-source MeshCore app community. Source code is linked from our support page.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: CairnOS at every 4 days against SolarMark's monthly. SolarMark's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, rating, ratings volume 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for SolarMark against 5.0 for CairnOS. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.
SolarMark ships an update monthly, CairnOS every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SolarMark | CairnOS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 54 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | SolarMark Software LLC | Christopher Van Hoose |
Customer experience
SolarMark
CairnOS
In-app purchases
SolarMark
No in-app purchases
CairnOS
No in-app purchases









