Hi HN, I built this because I live in a city with limited sunshine and kept missing the good days while working from home.
The problem: Apple Watch tracks "Time in Daylight" but buries it in Health app with zero insights.
What I built:
- Pulls daylight data from HealthKit
- Gives you a daily "Sunshine Score" (0-100) based on duration, frequency, and morning sun bonus
- Shows weekly trends to spot patterns
- Widget + Watch app for quick glance Tech: SwiftUI, HealthKit, WidgetKit, WatchOS. No backend – all data stays on device.
Built this in ~2 weeks with no prior iOS dev experience (used AI coding tools). Got rejected by Apple 4 times before approval – happy to share what I learned about HealthKit app reviews if anyone's curious.
Free to use, optional $1.99/mo subscription for trends.
Would love feedback, especially on the scoring algorithm.
Appreciate the honesty — this is exactly the feedback I need.
Core app is free, subscription is just for trends. But yeah, I'm not married to the model. If enough people prefer one-time purchase, I'd consider adding that option.
Okay, so here’s the thing: the ‘freemium’ model is always going to cause friction, the user will be using the app and suddenly run into an apparently arbitrary paywall and that’ll almost always solicit some kind of ire along the lines of “I want to see this thing, this thing is already there, but now they’re asking me to pay for what is already constructed and therefore has zero marginal cost to the developer” (or some inchoate variation thereof). Basically it generates frustration.
My take is that this is a fair app for the usage case you posit: determining sunlight exposure in regions where not much is available. Other use cases come to mind: for example beach-goers who are keen to make sure they don’t overexpose themselves but gradually build up a tan. It’s data they can piece together themselves numerically or (to be perfectly honest) that being humans who have evolved for millennia under sunlight, we can kind of intuit ourselves.
I’d say it’s a roughly 1.99 euro purchase fee for the ‘trends’ feature. It may even be a 1.99 euro for the app itself rather than half-free half-paid, but it’s definitely not something I want a large recurring subscription for. I can look at the sky and I can look at my skin, and I can figure out the rest. The only value is in quantifying it, and so the whole thing is meaningless unless it tells me something I don’t intuitively already know.
Hi HN, I built this because I live in a city with limited sunshine and kept missing the good days while working from home.
The problem: Apple Watch tracks "Time in Daylight" but buries it in Health app with zero insights.
What I built: - Pulls daylight data from HealthKit - Gives you a daily "Sunshine Score" (0-100) based on duration, frequency, and morning sun bonus - Shows weekly trends to spot patterns - Widget + Watch app for quick glance Tech: SwiftUI, HealthKit, WidgetKit, WatchOS. No backend – all data stays on device.
Built this in ~2 weeks with no prior iOS dev experience (used AI coding tools). Got rejected by Apple 4 times before approval – happy to share what I learned about HealthKit app reviews if anyone's curious.
Free to use, optional $1.99/mo subscription for trends.
Would love feedback, especially on the scoring algorithm.
I’d buy this one-time for a couple of bucks, but an 18 euro-a-year “subscription” is simply delusional, sorry. Keep up the good work.
Appreciate the honesty — this is exactly the feedback I need.
Core app is free, subscription is just for trends. But yeah, I'm not married to the model. If enough people prefer one-time purchase, I'd consider adding that option.
What price point would feel right to you?
Okay, so here’s the thing: the ‘freemium’ model is always going to cause friction, the user will be using the app and suddenly run into an apparently arbitrary paywall and that’ll almost always solicit some kind of ire along the lines of “I want to see this thing, this thing is already there, but now they’re asking me to pay for what is already constructed and therefore has zero marginal cost to the developer” (or some inchoate variation thereof). Basically it generates frustration.
My take is that this is a fair app for the usage case you posit: determining sunlight exposure in regions where not much is available. Other use cases come to mind: for example beach-goers who are keen to make sure they don’t overexpose themselves but gradually build up a tan. It’s data they can piece together themselves numerically or (to be perfectly honest) that being humans who have evolved for millennia under sunlight, we can kind of intuit ourselves.
I’d say it’s a roughly 1.99 euro purchase fee for the ‘trends’ feature. It may even be a 1.99 euro for the app itself rather than half-free half-paid, but it’s definitely not something I want a large recurring subscription for. I can look at the sky and I can look at my skin, and I can figure out the rest. The only value is in quantifying it, and so the whole thing is meaningless unless it tells me something I don’t intuitively already know.
This is really helpful, thank you.
You're right — the value is in quantifying something we can mostly intuit. That's a high bar.
Honestly leaning toward just making it $1.99 upfront, no freemium. Simpler and more honest.
The beach-goer angle is interesting too. Hadn't thought of that.
Appreciate you taking the time.
Glad to be of service. It’s lovely to have actually direct and honest conversations once in a while instead of talking over each-other dogmatically.