Tide Charts

Review by eFreeware

If your plans depend on the water, Tide Charts is the sort of app that earns a place on your home screen. It is built for people who need to know when the tide turns: kayakers timing a launch, surfers watching a swell window, anglers working a feeding tide, beachcombers after a low, or anyone with a boat to move. The developer, 7th Gear, has kept the promise simple: tide and lunar predictions for stations around the world, a local weather forecast and rain radar, all in one place.

The app is free with ads, and there is a one-time purchase that removes them for anyone who would rather not see them. It has been on Google Play since July 2015 and has passed five million installs, with an average rating of 3.9 from more than eighteen thousand ratings. That is a long run and a large audience for a niche utility, which suggests the core idea holds up even if opinions are mixed.

What I like about the premise is that it does not try to be a full marine navigation suite or a social network for sailors. It picks the nearest tide station by default, shows you the day at a glance, and lets you move on. For most readers, that is the right scope.

The day at a glance, and how you move through it

The main screen shows a full-day chart, marking the present height and shading the daylight hours, with a small gray bar at the bottom for lunar rise and set. That view also lists each high and low, with its time and height. It is a layout that answers the two questions that matter most: where the water is now, and when it will turn.

Moving through time is done by swiping left or right for the next or previous day, or by picking a date from the calendar. Scroll down and you see the sun and moon rise and set times, plus the moon's current phase. That combination covers the planning most people do before a trip to the coast, and it keeps the lunar information close without cluttering the tide chart itself.

Alerts can be set for a tide you pick, which helps when it arrives at an inconvenient time or you are otherwise occupied. Home screen widgets show today's tides and the next tide, so you can see the essentials without opening anything.

Finding your station, and keeping the ones you use

Tide Charts covers nearly 8,000 stations worldwide, spanning the US and Canadian shorelines, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South America and the Pacific islands. That is broad enough that most readers with a coastline nearby should find something usable, whether they are at home or traveling.

By default the app selects the closest station, which is the right choice for a quick look. If that station is not the one you want, you can pick another by viewing a map of your current location, with satellite imagery available when you need to identify a particular stretch of shore. You can also search by name. For anyone who splits time between a home harbor and a vacation spot, the favorites system lets you store several stations and switch between them quickly.

The height data is adjustable to match the local tide table you already trust. By default the app matches the datum used on local charts: MLLW for the US, chart datum for Canada, Japan and Korea, LAT for Europe and Australia, and MLWS for Peru and Ecuador. Alternatively, you can pick Mean Sea Level, MLLW, MLW, MLWS or LAT yourself. That flexibility matters if you compare predictions against a printed table or a harbor master's board.

Weather, radar and the watch on your wrist

Weather is included for the station's location, with wind, temperature, precipitation and the day's high and low. It is not a full forecasting service, but it sits next to the tide data where you need it, which is the point. The animated rain radar includes a scrubber so you can step through frames and see what is coming toward you rather than only where rain is now.

On Wear OS, the app offers a full-screen tide chart on the watch. The crown steps through the highs, lows and sun and moon times, while dragging scrubs across the coming 30 days. There are also complications for your watch face and a tile showing a chart of the next 24 hours, along with your favorite and nearby stations, the current height and the next tide. For anyone who leaves the phone in a dry bag or a pocket, that is a genuinely useful extension rather than a novelty.

Recent updates have brought fixes to scrolling, improvements to the radar screen and refreshed predictions, so the app is still being maintained.

What it asks of you, and where the edges are

If you are out of signal on a remote stretch of coast, the predictions you need are still there.

The trade-offs are mostly about scope and cost. Tide alerts are offered as a subscription, so if reminders are the feature you care about most, that is a separate cost. The predictions themselves are described as estimates, which is worth remembering if you are using them for anything where being wrong has consequences.

This is also a focused tool rather than a broad marine platform. It handles tides, lunar data, a local forecast and rain radar, and it does those things in a way that is meant to be read at a glance. If your needs run to routing, depth charts or passage planning, those are different tools.

The readers this fits best

I would point this at people whose time near the water is planned around the tide rather than around a schedule: sea kayakers, surfers, shore anglers, paddleboarders, swimmers, dog walkers on a tidal beach, and boat owners who need to know when there is water under the keel. The nearest-station default and the favorites list make it equally usable at home and on a trip.

It also suits anyone who wants the tide and a basic local forecast in the same view, without opening two apps. The offline predictions are the feature that would matter most to me if I were heading somewhere remote, and the Wear OS support is a real convenience for anyone who already wears a watch.

It suits anyone who wants a quick read on local tides, whether for fishing, surfing, a beach walk or planning a day on the water. But for the common question of when the water will be high or low, and what the weather is doing, the app covers the ground well.

A dependable companion for tidal planning

Tide Charts is a mature, widely installed utility that does one job clearly and adds the weather context you would otherwise look up separately. The worldwide station coverage, the adjustable datum, the offline predictions and the watch support are the parts that stand out. The ad-supported free version and the tide alerts are the costs to weigh, and the predictions are estimates rather than guarantees.

If you plan your days around the water, it is a sensible install. If you only check the tide a few times a year, the free version will still do the job, and the one-time purchase is there if the ads bother you. Either way, it is the kind of app that quietly becomes part of your routine.

What's new

- Fix scrolling issues - Enhance radar screen - Update predictions - Bug fixes