Rain Gauge vs SunNow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Rain Gauge
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Know how much rain fell—and whether you may need to water. Rain Gauge brings recent rainfall estimates, upcoming rain, and your weekly rain goal together in one clear view. Track your home, garden, lawn, farm, cabin, property, or any saved location without installing additional hardware. RAIN AT A GLANCE • View estimated rainfall from the past 24 hours and 7 days • See upcoming rainfall totals and precipitation chances • Compare recent rain with a weekly rainfall goal • Get simple, explainable watering guidance • Switch between inches and millimeters KNOW WHETHER TO WATER See whether your weekly goal has been reached, how much rain is still needed, and whether more rain is expected soon. Rain Gauge provides clear recommendations such as: • No Watering Needed • Consider Waiting • Check Your Garden • Consider Watering Recommendations are based on rainfall and forecast data. Actual needs may vary with soil, plants, temperature, season, and local conditions. ADD YOUR PHYSICAL GAUGE READINGS Weather-based estimates may differ from what falls in your yard. Add a measurement from your physical rain gauge, replace the weather estimate for that day, or keep both values for comparison. Every record is clearly marked as Estimated, Measured, or Adjusted. REVIEW RAINFALL HISTORY See daily rainfall records, rainy days, dry periods, monthly totals, and your wettest days. TRACK MULTIPLE LOCATIONS Monitor your home, garden, farm, cabin, property, campsite, or work site from one app. Each location can have its own name and weekly rainfall goal. RAIN GAUGE PRO Upgrade to unlock: • Up to 10 saved locations • 30-day and yearly rainfall history • Unlimited historical gauge readings • Home Screen widgets • Rainfall data export Rainfall totals are weather-based estimates and may differ from measurements taken by a physical gauge. Rain Gauge should not be used for flood, emergency, agricultural safety, or other safety-critical decisions. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
SunNow
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# SunNow Product Introduction Have you ever imagined an astronomy model that runs directly on your phone? Without a network connection or cloud computing, you can still know the solar time for your location, when the sun rises, when it sets, and when the moon may be visible. SunNow is exactly that kind of app. It brings the sun, Earth, moon, and your location into one on-device model. Based on latitude, longitude, altitude, date, and time, SunNow calculates sun angle, daylight, twilight, moon phase, and clear-sky radiation locally. You can drag the Earth and moon models to explore how light changes through a day, a month, and a year. In SunNow, time is not just digits on a clock. It becomes the sun's height, the day-night boundary across Earth, the glow before sunrise, the fading light after sunset, and the changing shape of the moon. ## A Sky Inside Your Phone SunNow is not just a weather app or a sunrise lookup tool. It is a local astronomy calculator for daily light, sun, and moon awareness. SunNow uses your current location or a place you select to calculate sun position, local solar time, daylight state, and moon information. You can see whether it is daylight, night, dawn, or dusk, and view sunrise, sunset, and a light curve. These calculations do not depend on the network. With no signal, no mobile data, outdoors, or on a plane, SunNow can still work. ## See Light, Not Just Time We look at time every day, but in real life, light often matters more than the clock. When does the sky begin to brighten? When is the light strongest? How long after sunset can you still see clearly? What phase is the moon in tonight? SunNow turns these questions into something visible. You can check sunrise and sunset, watch the twilight boundary move across Earth, observe clear-sky radiation, and scrub through time. ## Earth, Moon, and Your Location SunNow does not only give you a number. You can drag the Earth model to observe the day-night boundary, switch locations to compare solar states across cities, and save places you care about. The moon is part of the model too. SunNow shows moon phase changes and moon information, helping you see waxing and waning as a continuous process. ## Sunrise and Sunset Alarms For some people, sunrise and sunset are part of a daily rhythm. Regular alarms ring at a fixed clock time, but the sun changes with location and season. SunNow's sunrise and sunset alarms adjust based on your location and date. You can set reminders before sunrise, before sunset, or around specific solar events. For people who live, work, run, travel, photograph, or rest with the sun, this is an alarm that follows the sky. ## Offline, By Design The core features of the current version of SunNow do not require a network connection. Astronomy calculations happen on your device. Your location, saved places, display settings, and alarm rules are stored on your device. The app does not require registration or login, and it does not need to upload your location for its core calculations. You can grant location permission so SunNow can obtain latitude, longitude, and altitude automatically. You can also deny location permission and manually select a place. ## Who SunNow Is For SunNow is for people who care about natural light. It is useful for people living at high latitudes, where daylight length changes dramatically through the year. It helps outdoor workers, early runners, photographers, campers, hikers, commuters, moon watchers, stargazers, and anyone who wants to return their schedule to the sun. If you only want to know when the sun rises today, SunNow can answer that. If you want to understand why the light changes the way it does, SunNow can help you see it. SunNow is an offline astronomy app that uses Earth, the sun, the moon, and your location to show sunrise, sunset, daylight, twilight, moon phases, clear-sky radiation, and solar alarms that adjust with the seasons.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SunNow at none against Rain Gauge's 2. SunNow also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 18.6). On price 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. Rain Gauge sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. SunNow asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Rain Gauge | SunNow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 96 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 冲 洪 | nonono LLC |
In-app purchases
Rain Gauge
- Monthly$5.991 Month
- Annual$35.991 Year
SunNow
No in-app purchases









