Comparison

Heliograph vs Air Quality ◎

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Heliograph

Features
Read full description

Heliograph is a focused, native space-weather app for Solar Cycle 25. It pulls current conditions and short-horizon forecasts directly from public government sources and shows them plainly — with an honest timestamp on every value. What "live" means here Heliograph shows real conditions and short-range forecasts — not millisecond telemetry. While the app is open it refreshes on each source's own cadence, and every reading carries an "as of" timestamp so you always know how fresh it is. The freshest inputs come from NOAA's SOLAR-1 spacecraft at L1: in-situ solar wind within about 5 minutes, CME imagery within about 30 minutes — that is the ceiling, and we never pretend to beat it. Typical refreshes: aurora oval ~5 min, solar wind ~60 s, Kp ~15 min, NOAA G/S/R scales ~5–10 min, X-ray flares ~60 s, solar cycle daily. When solar-wind data is unavailable, the aurora forecast honestly falls back to a Kp-driven nowcast with reduced lead time, and Bz-dependent storm triggers are paused and labelled — we show the degraded state instead of hiding it. Ambient Mode — a living aurora The signature experience: a full-screen, data-reactive ambient that means something. One derived intensity drives everything — calm teal when quiet, brightening greens as activity builds, a magenta-violet push in a real storm. Pick your scene: a 3D aurora globe with the live OVATION oval over Earth's night side (australis first), the live Sun from NASA SDO, or a flowing solar-wind field. On Apple TV it's the lean-back living-room hero; on iPhone you can AirPlay or screen-mirror it to any TV. Built to run for hours with burn-in and thermal care — and it always eases to a calm fallback rather than fake a storm from stale data. Aurora australis, first-class Most aurora apps treat the Southern Hemisphere as an afterthought. Heliograph renders aurora australis first, alongside borealis — a real polar map with the auroral oval, local darkness/terminator, and your own viewline, plus a forecast scrub over the next 90 minutes. A "where do I go tonight?" ground map shows the visibility line across your region and how far toward the pole you'd need to travel. The infrastructure-impact lens Heliograph translates the current storm level into plain-language impact on what storms actually touch: the power grid (geomagnetically induced currents), GPS/GNSS accuracy, and HF radio. A world impact map places those effects on the day/night globe (colour-blind-safe). It is deliberately non-alarmist — most days, even minor storms, pass with no noticeable effect, and the app says so. Storm tracking & alerts A quiet → watch → storm state machine reads solar wind and Kp and shows exactly which triggers fired, with a Sun → L1 → Earth cinematic of the real arrival lead time. On iPhone, while you have Heliograph open, a storm Live Activity surfaces a significant storm on your Lock Screen — no account, no tracking. You can also opt into on-device "aurora likely tonight" alerts. On every surface: Lock Screen and StandBy widgets, a Control Center control, plain-language explainers, a colour legend, and a recent-activity solar time-lapse. Privacy, by design No account. No analytics. No tracking. No third-party SDKs. Data is fetched directly from public NOAA and NASA endpoints — Heliograph runs no servers of its own and stores nothing about you. Your location, if you grant it, is used only on-device to draw your aurora viewline — never stored or sent anywhere. Data sources NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — SOLAR-1 at L1, the GOES satellites, and ground stations — plus NASA SDO solar imagery via the Helioviewer Project. Heliograph is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA or NASA. Ambient Mode includes solar imagery, hourly Moon visualization, latest published Earth photography, dated cloud and thermal-detection maps, Aurora Globe and Solar Wind. Image dates and source details are available in the app. These views are not live video or emergency warnings.

About

Air Quality ◎

Get real-time air quality information for your city, including the main pollutant and its cause. Receive alerts for air quality changes and customize notifications based on your sensitivity profile. A widget provides at-a-glance updates without opening the app.

Highlights
  • Real-time AQI and pollutant concentration
  • Supports multiple international AQI scales
  • Weather factors explained
  • Global pollution map and city ranking
  • Customizable alerts
  • Personalized sensitivity profiles
  • Home screen widget
Features
Read full description

What you are breathing, at a glance. An index with no explanation is useless. Air Quality shows your city's level in real time, the pollutant pushing it up, the weather behind it, and one clear call: go out now, or wait until this evening. No account, no sign-up, no email address to hand over. THE INDEX, IN REAL TIME Your city's level, updated continuously, with the pollutant responsible and its concentration: PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide. When wildfire smoke drifts in, fine particles are what tell you first. YOUR COUNTRY'S OWN SCALE In the United States the app uses the AQI you already know, from 0 to 500. Travel, and it switches to the official scale of wherever you are: the European index, Canada's AQHI, the UK's DAQI, Korea's CAI, and the Japanese, Mexican, Australian and Brazilian scales. Nine scales in all, and you can force your own. THE WEATHER THAT EXPLAINS IT Wind disperses particles, heat manufactures ozone, rain washes the air. A discreet strip ties every move of the index to its cause, in one sentence. This is an air quality app, not a weather app: the weather is there to explain, never to take over the screen. MAP AND RANKING A pollution layer over the world map, monitoring stations where they exist, and a ranking of major cities so you can place your own. ALERTS THAT ACTUALLY WARN YOU A notification when the air degrades in one of your cities, and another when it is breathable again. You set the threshold, the app keeps watch. YOUR SENSITIVITY PROFILE Asthma, heart condition, young child, older adult, pregnancy, outdoor sport: tick what applies to you. The app then watches the pollutants that affect you first and warns you earlier, without ever altering the readings it shows. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN A widget shows your city's level without opening the app. YOUR DATA STAYS WITH YOU No account, no advertising profile built on your health. Your reading history is stored on your device. PREMIUM The free version gives you today's index, the map, the ranking, the widget and one tracked city. Premium adds: no ads, five-day forecasts, up to 50 cities, alerts, twelve months of history and CSV export of your readings. Monthly or yearly subscription — a seven-day free trial on the yearly plan — or a one-time lifetime purchase. Prices for your country are shown inside the app. Payment is charged to your Apple account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; manage and cancel them in your Apple account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ General terms: https://airquality.devolim.fr/en/terms.html Subscription terms: https://airquality.devolim.fr/en/subscription.html Privacy: https://airquality.devolim.fr/en/privacy.html Data: Copernicus / CAMS via Open-Meteo. Air Quality provides environmental information. It is not a medical device and does not replace the advice of a health professional.

Screenshots

Heliograph2 screens
Air Quality ◎4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Heliograph at none against Air Quality ◎'s shown. Air Quality ◎'s advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 6 level
Heliograph versus Air Quality ◎: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHeliographAir Quality ◎
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, Apple TV, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size16 MB75 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperAphelion Engineering Pty LtdDevolim

In-app purchases

None

Heliograph

No in-app purchases

None

Air Quality ◎

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Heliograph free?
Heliograph is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Air Quality ◎ free?
Air Quality ◎ is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Heliograph or Air Quality ◎ have ads?
Air Quality ◎ shows ads; Heliograph does not.
Which is updated more often, Heliograph or Air Quality ◎?
Heliograph ships an update every 2 months, and Air Quality ◎ every 2 months. Most recently, Heliograph was updated on October 31, 2026 and Air Quality ◎ on November 6, 2026.

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