Lux, Makers of Halide, Launch Skylight for Golden Hour Predictions ⇥ lux.camera

Rebecca Sloan of Lux:

Today we’re excited to launch a new little app: Skylight Forecast. Skylight is an iPhone app that predicts your evening light. With the help of dozens of atmospheric factors and some of our own intelligent prediction technology, Skylight makes a daily forecast of the golden hour, sunset and afterglow — to tell you whether you can expect a spectacular sunset, an average glow, or barely anything at all.

Lux launched this app last week and I have been using it since, with impeccably poor timing: Calgary has been immersed in smoke ever since. Not ideal photography conditions, to be sure.

Nevertheless, I have tried to use it for much of the past week, but have been disappointed. While this is a challenging environment, I have to wonder why Skylight’s forecast is not reflecting that. Instead of telling me golden hour and the sunset will be good to great, I wish it was more accurate to the sad and grey conditions. I emailed Lux to ask about this but, as of writing, have not heard back.

Also, I wish there were a morning forecast for sunrise and early golden hour, especially since it seems to be clearer when I wake up than in the evenings.

There is good news. The app is beautiful, and the widgets are simple and easy to understand. It is privacy sensitive. And, while there is an subscription cost, its forecasting premise makes sense as it needs ongoing access to weather data.

There is a free week-long trial, so I recommend playing around with it. If your forecast is more accurate than mine has been, I could see why someone would use this regularly — especially professional photographers and filmmakers. For me, it has been a mixed bag, and I will have to try it again when it is less smoky for a clearer picture.