GoldnBlue icon

GoldnBlue

Sunrise, all twilight types, golden & blue hours, sunset, and the moon - at a glance on your wrist.

Wear OS Tile 6 languages

GoldnBlue - The Idea

Photographers chase the golden hour. Aviators read civil twilight to know when flight rules change. Sailors navigate by the nautical horizon. Astronomers wait for astronomical night. Runners and cyclists plan around the daylight they'll have. Morning-light folks tuning their circadian rhythm watch the same sunrise. Hikers and birders just want to know when the light will go - and come back.

GoldnBlue is a Wear OS Tile that lays the day's solar phases out on your wrist - sunrise, sunset, solar noon, civil/nautical/astronomical twilight, the golden hour and the blue hour - plus the moon's current phase and rise/set. Pick which events you want to see; the tile shows the time of each event and a live countdown to the next one - all for your current location.

The outer ring is a sky-colour gradient that dynamically follows the sun's altitude through the day.

Everything is computed on the watch. The default mode doesn't even ask for permissions: GoldnBlue takes a reasonable guess at your location from your timezone (good to about ±150 km), and only asks for GPS if you switch to precise mode. Optional opt-in place-name lookups are the only thing that ever touches the internet - and only OpenStreetMap, never us.

Screenshots

GoldnBlue tile face at sunrise, ring sweeping from blue through violet and orange to gold
GoldnBlue tile face at midday, calm uniform gold ring
GoldnBlue tile face at blue hour, ring sweeping from orange to deep blue
GoldnBlue tile face at night, deep uniform navy-blue ring
GoldnBlue settings screen, location precision set to Timezone
GoldnBlue settings screen, per-event toggles for which sun and moon events to show

Features

15 sun & moon events to pick from

Sunrise, sunset, solar noon, golden & blue dawn/dusk, civil/nautical/astronomical dawn/dusk, plus moonrise, moonset and the moon's current phase. Choose which events show on the tile.

Sky-colour gradient ring

The tile's outer ring dynamically shifts colour with the sun's altitude.

Works without GPS or internet

Default mode uses your watch's timezone as a coarse location - roughly ±150 km, plenty for everyday use. Zero permissions, zero network. Most users never need anything else.

Switch to GPS for precision

Tap Re-locate (GPS) in the on-watch settings for a one-shot fix. That location then drives the tile until you re-locate or switch back to timezone mode; a fresh fix is reused for 15 minutes so toggling back and forth won't trigger a new GPS lock.

Optional place names

Opt-in OpenStreetMap lookup turns numerical coordinates into "Berlin, DE" or similar - at your choice of coarse (~11 km region) or precise level. Exactly one request, only when you re-locate.

Adaptive refresh

Tile updates more often when the next event is close, and less often when you're between events. Keeps the countdown accurate without nibbling at the battery.

Events you can show

Pick any of these 15 sun & moon events to show on the tile - listed here in the order they occur through the day.

Principles in practice

The 10 EiBPM principles, and how GoldnBlue lives up to each

FAQ

Why does GoldnBlue need to know where I am?

Exact sunrise, sunset and the various twilights depend on precise location - they happen at very different times in Reykjavík vs. Cape Town. By default GoldnBlue takes a coarse guess from your watch's timezone (good to about ±150 km) so it can show something useful with zero permissions. If that's not precise enough, you can opt in to a one-shot GPS fix.

What if I leave it on timezone mode and don't grant GPS?

Everything still works. The tile uses the timezone-centroid coordinates and the sun times are accurate within roughly 15–30 minutes for sunrise/sunset - close enough for most "is it golden hour yet" or "when will it be dark enough for stars" questions. No error state, no nagging.

What's the difference between civil, nautical and astronomical twilight?

They're defined by how far the sun has dropped below the horizon. Civil twilight: 0–6° below, enough light to read outdoors. Nautical twilight: 6–12° below, horizon still visible to a sailor. Astronomical twilight: 12–18° below, true astronomical darkness - past this point, even dark-adapted eyes can no longer detect any remaining twilight glow in the sky.

What about the golden hour and blue hour?

Golden hour: sun between 0° and 6° above the horizon - warm, diffuse light, photographers' favourite. Blue hour: sun between 4° below and 0° - deep blue sky, just-after-sunset / just-before-sunrise glow. GoldnBlue's name and palette come from these two windows that bookend the day.

What do the arrows mean, like "Nautical ↑"?

↑ marks the dawn side of an event, ↓ the dusk side - light increasing vs. fading. Tap through to the on-watch settings to see the full name spelled out for any row.

How does the sky-colour ring work?

The outer ring is a soft gradient that dynamically flows through the sky's colours as the sun moves.

Do I need a phone-side companion?

No. GoldnBlue is a Wear OS Tile - install it on the watch and use it. There is no phone-side app to install, no pairing, nothing to sync.

Which languages does the app support?

GoldnBlue's Wear OS tile is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. This website is in English and German for now - the app itself covers all six.

Privacy

GoldnBlue follows the EiBPM principles - no ads, no trackers, no accounts, no servers. Here's exactly what that means for this app.

What GoldnBlue collects

Nothing. No accounts, no analytics, no ads, no crash reporting, no identifiers - and there is no EiBPM data server to send anything to.

Location

Precise location (ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION) is used only when you tap Re-locate (GPS) - a single one-shot fix, used and cached on your watch for the sun maths. It is never sent to us. By default GoldnBlue uses a coarse timezone estimate and needs no location permission at all.

Place names (optional)

If you turn on place-name lookup, one request with your coordinates - rounded to ~11 km granularity in Coarse mode, or sent at full precision in Precise mode - goes to OpenStreetMap to name your location; the result is cached on the watch. This is the app's only outbound network call, and only when you enable the feature and re-locate. Also see OpenStreetMap's privacy policy.

Retention & control

The cached GPS location and place label stay in the app's private on-device storage until you clear the app's data - switching back to timezone mode deliberately keeps the last fix so a quick return to GPS mode doesn't need a new lock. Uninstalling removes everything.

Distribution

As a Wear OS app, GoldnBlue is distributed through Google Play - the only practical, device-independent channel for watches (vendor stores are device-specific). The app itself adds no Google licensing or integrity checks and makes no calls to Google; Google Play and Play Services have their own data practices, outside our control.