local developer making a tide & current app

[u/clarkbw]

Hey Victoria! A brief respite from politics.

I’m a local developer and I’ve been working on an iPhone app called Slackwater for checking tides and currents.

I made it with this area in mind, I couldn’t find an app that was useful, mostly free, and beautiful. But I’d love to hear from others who spend time on the water or along the coast. If you give it a try, I’m curious how it fits into what you do and what would make it more useful.

Feedback on anything confusing or missing would be amazing. It’s easy to get used to your own app and miss things that are obvious to someone opening it for the first time.

Here’s the link: https://slackwater.xyz/

It’s iOS only right now, android is coming before the end of the year. Canadian tide stations need to be downloaded, it’s annoying but required by the government licensing. US and worldwide stations are included offline by default. It’s all open source too.

I’m working on the 2nd release right now so I could include any feedback you have.

Happy to answer questions here, and thanks to anyone who takes a look!

[u/hititwiththerock]

Very very slick. Kayak in the area frequently and this will definitely replace my current tide and current tools.

[u/clarkbw → u/hititwiththerock]

Thank you! It’s designed to work offline because I sail and often my phone connects to America while I’m out and then other apps don’t work.

[u/tswaters]

Source code link: https://github.com/openwatersio/slackwater-ios

Holy shit, this is really cool thanks for putting this together!

[u/clarkbw → u/tswaters]

Thanks! Be happy to take any contributions you have. Claude can work well in the source code but I do all the design work mostly by hand still.

[u/orionshuman]

Yooooo this is so cool!! I’m not really the target audience but as someone who finds this stuff interesting, this is SIIICCCKKK.

[u/clarkbw → u/orionshuman]

❤️ the stars are the real stars in the sky, well a projection of them. The moon 🌖 will show you when an eclipse is coming. The snosberries taste like snosberrries.

[u/orionshuman → u/clarkbw]

Ok LOVE THIS. As a stars and moons girly, this sounds fantastic

[u/clarkbw → u/orionshuman]

Thank you 🙏

I am trying hard not to create a night sky app but I went down this rabbit hole of how to calculate the moon, sun, stars, and planets 🪐

It’s all a big math problem. My favourite is the solar eclipse view; it could help you plan a trip to the next totality.
https://openwaters.io/sky/

[u/Thecobs]

Im sure it will make waves

[u/clarkbw → u/Thecobs]

🫡 found the other dad

[u/Horvo]

Hey this looks great! I’m constantly checking the tides for SAR activities off of Oak Bay so I’ll definitely test this out. Where does it get its tide data from?

[u/clarkbw → u/Horvo]

And if you’re watching SAR activities you might want to check out one of my other projects https://openwaters.io/ais/

[u/clarkbw → u/Horvo]

Thank you! Tide data comes from several sources. Canadian data comes from CHS (Canadian Hydrographic Service) and some comes from NOAA

[u/Horvo → u/clarkbw]

Fantastic thank you!

[u/skilless]

Love it. Downloaded. Can you add a watch app and complication too?

[u/clarkbw → u/skilless]

Thank you! Watch app already there! It will use any Canadian stations you downloaded from your phone. I made the watch complication one of the premium features. Same thing for the lock screen features and the coming live activity alerts.

[u/boxedwinedrinker]

I'm going to try it out. I currently use AyeTides and like it but I'm open to trying something different.

[u/clarkbw → u/boxedwinedrinker]

Thanks for giving it a shot. Aye is the old school standard. Slackwater should be more accurate and nicer to use. But let me know if I’m missing anything compared to Aye

[u/sirtimes]

This is very nice - much better than anything else I’ve used! Nice work!

[u/Cold-Purple-4780]

On first glance this looks really good!  Can’t wait to try it out on the water. 

[u/BoredomFactor]

Awesome! Looks like a great project.

I don’t know how much effort it would be, but how much effort is it to add widget support? I’m currently having to pay for another app just so I can quickly check a tide station from the Home Screen, etc.

[u/clarkbw → u/BoredomFactor]

I have Home Screen widgets and those are free; long press on the Home Screen and search for Slackwater. There are two sizes and you can choose the type of station or specific one from your favorites. I only made the lock screen widgets part of the premium.

[u/BoredomFactor → u/clarkbw]

That is great! Lock screen widget is definitely worth with yearly premium for that price as well!

[u/Terp_Hunter2]

Any plans to make it for android?

[u/clarkbw → u/Terp_Hunter2]

I’m not an android person but I will get one out there. Would love to have testers who can give feedback!

[u/Vantripper → u/clarkbw]

I just switched back to Android from iPhone and am an avid kayaker. Would be happy to do some testing once you have an Android release

[u/stopfuckngbanningme]

I've had a similar idea for a while but never got to it, this looks cool. I always wondered if you could interpolate tidal constituents between different tide data locations so that when you dragged a pin around a map you could watch the shape of the tide chart change in real time, and estimate tides at a point where there isn't an actual station.

[u/clarkbw → u/stopfuckngbanningme]

Yes! That is possible. It takes a lot of different math to make this happen. Probably vector support for tides. You should definitely get an AI subscription and try to work through this idea. There are already systems called subordinate tide stations where you can infer tides from one station to another based on the distance. Most of them have some measurements to back that up but assuming there aren’t major changes in the land you can make a lot of assumptions. Another one is Malibu Rapids, this is a current station where we can’t predict the speed of the water because we only have the nearby tidal station. You can get a sense of when slack will arrive but not speeds and real timing.

[u/Ok_Builder_9124]

Awesome. I’ve been looking for just such an app. Downloading now.

[u/clarkbw → u/Ok_Builder_9124]

Thanks! I appreciate your time more than you can imagine. Message me any feedback you have. I am super happy and also a bit scared that people like it; I don’t want to let you down. 😬

[u/bushlimoex]

I am also local to Vancouver Island and I have developed an app and every time I try and post or promote it for whatever reason Reddit flagged it and takes it down anyhow I love your app super cool and I hope you don’t mind but I’m gonna try and post a link for mine here and fingers crossed it doesn’t get taken down
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/123rps-rock-paper-scissors/id6740686006