Calculate Solar Times
Latitude, longitude, and altitude are used to generate sunrise and sunset times for the user's chosen location.
SunTimer is built around something modern clocks largely ignore: the meaningful parts of a day do not occur at the same clock time throughout the year.
The application accepts latitude, longitude, and altitude and uses that location information to calculate sunrise and sunset times. Those results are presented as a table so that the gradual movement of daylight through the year can be viewed directly rather than reduced to a single weather-app readout.
SunTimer can also create alerts before upcoming sunrise and sunset events. The current version was developed for personal use and is already part of an active daily workflow, with later development intended to make those alerts function more like purpose-built alarms.
What SunTimer Does
Show the Year as a Table
Solar events can be viewed across a broader span of dates, making seasonal changes in sunrise and sunset visible as a pattern instead of isolated daily numbers.
Alert Before the Event
SunTimer can notify the user as sunrise or sunset approaches, allowing those natural transitions to become part of a routine rather than something noticed only after they have passed.
Work From Exact Location Data
The current application uses manually entered geographic coordinates and altitude, keeping the calculation explicit and under the user's control.
The Design Philosophy
“The clock repeats itself every day. The sky does not.”
Most digital schedules treat 6:00 AM in January as fundamentally equivalent to 6:00 AM in June. For many practical purposes that is necessary, but it removes one of the oldest forms of temporal context: the changing position of the sun.
SunTimer does not attempt to replace the ordinary clock. It adds another layer to it. Sunrise and sunset become events that can be viewed, anticipated, and incorporated into a routine.
The broader idea is that timekeeping can be both precise and contextual. A schedule can remain modern while still acknowledging the astronomical cycles underneath it.
Why It Exists
Sunrise and sunset information is widely available, but it is usually treated as a small piece of weather data: a pair of numbers shown for the current day and then forgotten.
SunTimer was built for a different use. The objective is not merely to look up when the sun rises. It is to make those times part of a usable system: something that can be reviewed over time, anticipated with an alert, and eventually connected to routines, calendars, and other forms of natural timing.
Because the application began as a personal tool, its development is driven first by whether it improves actual daily use rather than by the need to immediately become a general-purpose consumer application.
Project Status
| Area | Current State |
|---|---|
| Location input | Manual latitude, longitude, and altitude entry is working. |
| Sunrise calculation | Working and used to generate solar timing data. |
| Sunset calculation | Working and presented alongside sunrise data. |
| Solar tables | Working table-based view for examining sunrise and sunset times over multiple dates. |
| Alerts | Working notifications for upcoming solar events, with more alarm-like behavior planned. |
| Personal use | The application is already in active personal use. |
| Public availability | Not currently released. Development remains focused on personal utility and expansion. |
Future Direction
One of the next logical improvements is automatic location access. Instead of requiring latitude, longitude, and altitude to be entered manually, SunTimer could request the user's location and update its calculations appropriately.
The notification system is also intended to become more deliberate. Rather than using ordinary alert sounds, future versions may include audio engineered specifically for sunrise, sunset, and other astronomical events, with the goal of creating alarms that feel distinct without becoming abrasive.
Additional calendar systems may eventually be incorporated so that solar timing can be viewed alongside different cultural or chronological frameworks rather than only the standard civil calendar.
The most substantial expansion would move beyond sunrise and sunset into more detailed astronomical information: twilight periods, solar position, moonrise and moonset, lunar timing, and other useful measurements of where the sun and moon are within their visible cycles.
Development Notes
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WORKINGPersonal-use application established with manual geographic input, sunrise and sunset calculation, tabular results, and advance alerts.
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CURRENTContinuing to use the application personally while evaluating the next improvements to alerts, location handling, and the broader interface.
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LATERAutomatic location access, purpose-built alarm audio, alternative calendars, and deeper sun and moon timing and positional information.