Marianne's Response

App replaces shady guesswork with Science

Press Release
For immediate release
December 8, 2019

** App replaces shady guesswork with Science **

When most gardeners plant something, they guess how much shade or sun it will get; it’s simply too difficult to do otherwise. The sun and the shade it casts are never still: they move all the time, hour by hour, season by season, touching this then that. Tracking this movement across time, recording it and averaging it, is laborious and prohibitively time consuming.

Until now!

A new Android app, Sun and Shade Analyzer (SASHA), does it all in seconds. The app’s author – inspired by a gardening spouse who could not decide which locations in their yard have part sun and which have part shade (despite a PhD) – decided that this was a simple matter of physics and programming, and set to work writing an app which will change gardeners’ relationship with the sun!

Sun and Shade Analyzer (SASHA) quickly and easily predicts the average hours of direct sunlight at any chosen plant location over any number of days. For the first time, users can go to a location, quickly scan their surroundings with the app’s camera, and the app will compute the daily direct sunlight at that location, averaged over the date range they have chosen, and taking into consideration all objects which might cast shade.

Sun and Shade Analyzer (SASHA) is:

TRANSFORMATIVE: Like the USDA Hardiness zones, whose invention gave planters a scientific way to predict seasonal temperatures at a growing location, SASHA offers a scientific way to quickly predict the average direct sunlight plants can expect at a given location. Prior to SASHA, obtaining equivalent information required observing sun/shade over a period of months, using cumbersome physical aids, or mathematical modeling of shading objects. With SASHA, a simple scan requiring only seconds gives all the same information. Plant sun exposure is no longer hard to determine.
EASY TO USE: Just go to a location and scan the surroundings, guided by the app. It takes less than a minute to get an answer. A child can do it!

PRACTICAL:
The app automatically averages changes in sunlight due to time of day and year.
The app can be used any time of year — it can simulate summer foliage when used during the winter.
The app can be used anywhere you can reach to do the scan.
The app will reduce the aggravation of moving plants from one location to another seeking the right amount of sun.
ECONOMICAL: Introductory price is only $4.99 — the app will pay for itself many times over in plant material saved and aggravation avoided!
UNIQUE: there is nothing else like it on the market! Patent Pending.

Here’s how it works: SASHA computes all possible solar paths across the sky during the specified date range, and uses your device’s camera to photograph anything that would block the sun’s light (foliage, buildings, etc.). Then it mathematically combines photos and paths, determines which parts of the paths are blocked, and gives the average hours of full sun striking the place during the selected date interval.

SASHA Features include:

Uses GPS to establish your general location
Allows manually setting the averaging date interval to anything from two days to a year apart; otherwise defaults to the ‘local growing season’ (derived from the last spring frost and first fall frost date at the weather station nearest your location).
Uses NOAA’s algorithms to accurately compute solar passage across the sky.
Shows augmented reality on-screen indicators to help the user scan and photograph all possible solar paths during selected date interval.
During the scan, on screen indicators also show which solar paths have been photographed, and which have yet to be photographed.
In order to allow use during the winter (when foliage is reduced or absent) SASHA can “simulate foliage” to achieve a good estimate of the sunlight averages.
The average daily sunlight is presented to the user in under a minute.

Download from Google Play Store by clicking here: SASHA.

Or you can copy & paste the full link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hookmountain.sasha.paid.release

Go outside and play with it. It’s FUN!

Sorry – no iOS version (yet).

George Koulomzin
Hook Mountain Software Development, Inc.
7 Bridge Hill Lane, Bridgehampton, NY 11932-0781
sasha@HookMountain.com
914-393-6179

Posted by George Koulomzin on December 9, 2019

Marianne's Response

Sounds great - but this site is for garden questions not really for promotion of new products. Good luck.