Sun Position: Sunrise/set PRO

Review by eFreeware

Sun Position PRO is a paid Android app from Stonekick that answers a simple question with a surprising amount of detail: where will the sun and moon be, at any hour, on any date, from any spot you choose. It sits in the Photography category, but the reach is wider than that. The core appeal is planning ahead, whether that is a shoot next weekend or a project that runs across a whole year.

What makes it worth a closer look is the mix of data and presentation. You get sunrise and sunset times, golden hour and blue hour windows, the stages of twilight, moon phases, moonrise and moonset, and path calculations for the sun, the moon and the milky way. It is a tool for photographers and planners, and its features support that.

It has been on Google Play since June 2012 and now sits at version history that includes Android 16 support in its most recent release. With more than 50,000 installs and a 4.9 average across 2,730 ratings, it has clearly found a steady audience. That history matters less than what it does today, but it does suggest a tool that has been shaped over time.

Who tends to get the most from it

The clearest fit is anyone whose work or hobby depends on light. Photographers planning a landscape shot around golden hour, or an astrophotographer working out when the milky way will be most visible, are the obvious audience. The app gives those timings for a chosen date rather than only today, which is the difference between a casual sun tracker and a planning tool.

Beyond photography, it suits camping and hiking, sailing and boating, drone flying, gardening and landscaping, and even solar panel placement. Each of those leans on the same underlying question: how much sun will this spot get, and when. A gardener checking which corner of a yard stays shaded, or a homeowner weighing how a patio faces through the year, is using the same data as a photographer, just for a different decision.

That breadth is the app's strength, but it also sets expectations. This is a reference tool for planning, not a camera app, a weather app or a navigation package. If your interest is in knowing the light before you commit to a time and place, it lines up well. If you want something that takes the photo or tells you whether clouds will spoil it, that is a different job.

Sun and moon data for any date

The foundation of the app is its data set. For a chosen location and date, it reports sunrise and sunset, the golden hour and blue hour windows, and the separate stages of twilight. The developer's pitch is that this is all the data you need, presented in a format that is easy to understand.

The value of that last part should not be underestimated. Sun and moon figures can be dense, and a table of angles and times is only useful if you can read it quickly while standing in a field or sitting at a desk planning a trip. The app's stated approach is clarity over volume, which is the right instinct for something you might check in a hurry.

Because the data is tied to a date rather than just the present moment, it supports the kind of planning that happens well in advance. Scouting a location weeks ahead, or mapping out a project that spans a year, both become a matter of picking a date and a place and reading the result. That is the practical core of the app.

The augmented reality camera view

The headline feature is the AR camera view. Instead of translating a number into a direction in your head, you point the phone and the arc is drawn over the scene in front of you.

For photographers this is the most immediately useful part of the package. Standing at a viewpoint and seeing where the sun will track across a composition is a much faster way to judge whether a location works than working from bearings alone. It is also the feature most likely to draw people to the app in the first place.

The qualifier matters, though. The AR view is offered for supported devices, so it is worth checking that your phone is among them before buying if that feature is the main reason you are interested. The rest of the app, including the data and the map, does not depend on it, but the AR overlay is the part that sets this apart from a plain table of times.

The interactive map and the home screen widget

Alongside the AR view, the app includes an interactive map that shows the daily path of the sun and moon relative to any location. You can see the full solar arc across the day, which is useful for judging how a spot will be lit from morning through evening without stepping outside. For planning a shoot, a garden layout or a panel placement, seeing the arc drawn on a map is a clear way to reason about obstructions and angles.

There is also a home screen widget that puts today's sunrise and sunset times in front of you without opening the app. It is a small addition, but a sensible one for a tool you might otherwise forget to check. For anyone who wants a quick daily reference rather than a full planning session, the widget covers the common case.

Together, the map and the widget round out the app beyond the AR mode. One is for thinking through a location in detail, the other for a glance at the day ahead. Neither is complicated, and both support the same underlying purpose: knowing where the light will be before you commit to being there.

What it costs and what you get

Sun Position PRO is a one-time purchase at $9.99. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so the price you see is the price you pay, and nothing inside the app is gated behind further spending. That is a straightforward arrangement, and for a tool used repeatedly across a season it is easy to justify.

You are deciding on the strength of the features and the reputation the app has built. Anyone weighing the cost should look at whether the AR view, the map and the date-based data match the kind of planning they actually do.

There is also a support address for questions and suggestions, which is a reasonable sign for a paid app. Beyond that, the cost structure is as simple as it gets: pay once, use the features described, no further transactions.

How it compares with other options

The nearest alternatives are general weather apps that include sunrise and sunset times as one line among many, and dedicated photography planning tools that bundle light data with location scouting. Weather apps will tell you when the sun rises, but they are not built to show a solar arc on a map or overlay a path on your camera view for a date months away.

Specialist planning tools occupy similar ground, and the choice between them comes down to which set of features matches your routine. Sun Position PRO leans on the combination of an AR overlay, an interactive sun path map and a home screen widget, with data for any date and location. If those three things are what you would use, the package is coherent.

There is also the simple option of doing nothing and relying on general knowledge of the seasons. That works for casual outings, but it falls apart when a specific composition, a specific garden bed or a specific roofline needs a specific hour. The app exists for the cases where the general answer is not good enough.

A focused tool for planning around light

Sun Position PRO is a well-established paid app with a clear purpose: telling you where the sun and moon will be, on any date, from any location, and presenting that in a way you can act on. The AR camera view, the interactive map and the home screen widget each serve that purpose in a different setting, and the data underneath covers the timings photographers and planners tend to need.

The $9.99 price, the absence of ads and the absence of in-app purchases make the decision simple. The AR feature is limited to supported devices, which is the one caveat to check before buying if that is your main draw. A 4.9 average from 2,730 ratings suggests the people who bought it have been satisfied.

It suits photographers, gardeners, sailors, drone pilots and anyone else who plans outdoor activity around daylight and wants more than a daily sunrise time. If your decisions depend on where the light falls and when, this is a tool built for exactly that.

What's new in version 4.6.0

This release adds Android 16 support. We hope that you like these changes. If you have any questions or suggestions you can get in contact at [email protected].