Sense V2 Flip Clock & Weather

Review by eFreeware

Most weather apps ask you to open them. You tap the icon, wait for the forecast to load, read it and close it again. That works, but it means the information you check most often, temperature and conditions, sits one step away from the screen you actually look at. A home screen widget solves that, and a weather app built around widgets solves it without a second app.

Sense V2 Flip Clock & Weather is that combination: a set of flip-style clock widgets paired with a full forecast app. It comes from MACHAPP Software Ltd, sits in the Weather category on Google Play, and has been on the store since late 2012. It has passed a million installs and holds a 4.2 average from more than 68,000 ratings, which suggests a settled product rather than a novelty. It is free to install, supported by ads, and offers optional in-app purchases.

What the forecast side covers

The app is not a single-number weather display. For your current location it shows temperature, pressure, visibility, UV index, wind speed and direction, dew point, and the chance of rain and snow. Alongside those it gives humidity and a comfort reading, and it can draw weather graphs if you prefer trends to numbers. The daily forecast runs seven days ahead, while the hourly view, wind forecast and UV index each cover the next twelve hours.

You can also track other places, up to ten in total, which is the part I would expect to matter most for people with family in another city, a second home, or regular travel. Sun and moon information is included, moon phases among it, and there is a weather radar that refreshes every three hours. Notifications can be set for specific weather conditions, temperature ranges and strong winds, so the app can tell you when something you care about is coming rather than waiting to be checked.

The presentation is adjustable: backgrounds and weather icons can be changed to suit your taste. Taken together, this is a broad forecast tool rather than a glance-at-the-temperature app, and the depth is the reason to consider it over a simpler alternative.

The widgets are the main event

Four widgets are included, in 4x2 and 4x3 sizes. Each can be set to full width or kept at a fixed size, so it can either fill the row or sit centered on the home screen. That flexibility matters more than it sounds, because widget sizing is where most home screen setups fall apart.

There are more than twenty skins to choose from, and the options go further than color: font size, the information displayed and the icons can all be changed, so a widget can be as sparse or as busy as you like. Some widgets are built specifically around the current condition and forecast, while others carry time and date. The widgets also include shortcuts that launch the alarm app, the calendar and other apps, which turns the widget into a small control point rather than a static display.

The developer's pitch is that the skins let the widget match your home screen settings, and that is the appeal of this approach: the clock and the forecast share one block of space instead of competing for it.

Getting it set up

Setup follows the usual pattern for a widget-based weather app. You install it, then add the widget to your home screen and choose a skin and size, and the forecast app itself handles the rest, drawing on your current location or the places you add. Setting it up means choosing a widget size and then trimming the information shown until it reads the way you want.

The app is free with ads, and there is an optional premium subscription. The developer lists what premium adds: air quality information, an animated weather radar, severe weather alerts, animated backgrounds and premium weather icons. Air quality is one of the premium additions, so it is not part of the free version.

The most recent update, version 9.17.0, brought interface improvements, bug fixes and optimizations, and extended the 24-hour data in the current forecast cards to premium users. Anyone who has used the app for a while will recognize that as the kind of maintenance release that keeps a long-running app current.

Where it fits into a day

The widget-first design suits people who want the forecast visible without opening anything. If your phone sits on a desk or a kitchen counter, a flip clock that also carries the current condition and the day's outlook does two jobs in one slot, and the shortcut buttons mean you can reach the alarm or calendar from the same place.

The deeper forecast tools suit a different moment: planning a week, checking wind before an outdoor commitment, or watching a temperature range so the notification fires when it matters. The ten-location limit covers the common cases of family, travel and a second address, and the graphs and hourly views give enough detail for people who like to see the shape of a day rather than a single figure.

The premium tier is where the app extends into additional areas, particularly air quality and severe weather alerts. Those are the features I would weigh when deciding whether the subscription is worth it, since they add information rather than changing how the app looks.

Who gets the most from it

This is a good fit for anyone who treats the home screen as a dashboard. If you already run a clock widget and a separate weather widget, combining them into one customizable block is a clear gain, and the option to adjust colors, font size and icons means the result can be made to look deliberate rather than default.

It also suits people who want a forecast with some depth behind it: seven days ahead, twelve hours of hourly detail, wind and UV, plus alerts tied to conditions and temperature ranges. The ten saved locations and the sun and moon data round that out for anyone tracking more than one place.

The app is ad-supported and the premium features sit behind an optional subscription. If your interest is a single current temperature on a lock screen, the breadth here is more than you need. For a widget-driven setup with a real forecast engine underneath, the combination is hard to match in one install.

A widget-first weather app worth the home screen space

Sense V2 Flip Clock & Weather does two things at once and does them in the same place: it puts a customizable flip clock and forecast on your home screen, and it backs that with seven-day, twelve-hour and location-based forecast data, alerts, radar and sun and moon information. The four widget sizes, twenty-plus skins and per-element options give you real control over how it looks, and the shortcut buttons make the widget useful rather than decorative.

The caveats are straightforward. Ads are part of the free version, and premium features such as air quality, animated radar and severe weather alerts require the optional subscription.

I would recommend it to people who want their forecast on the home screen and are willing to spend a few minutes tuning a widget to their taste, and to anyone who tracks several locations and wants alerts tied to specific conditions. If you want a minimal app that shows one number and nothing else, this one is built for considerably more than that.

What's new in version 9.17.0

Version 9.17.0 - UI improvements - Show 24-hour data in current forecast cards for premium users - Bug fixes and optimizations