A light meter for houseplants, and a watering schedule that follows it.
allenjoshsamson99@gmail.com
Every message reaches the person who builds the app.
Bug reports, questions and feature requests are all welcome. If you are reporting something odd, telling me the iPhone model and roughly what the light was like at the time usually solves it in one reply.
How can a phone measure light?
Verdant reads the camera's own exposure metering — the same measurement it uses to choose a shutter speed — and converts it to approximate lux. It is a real reading rather than a guess, though it is not a laboratory instrument. It is at its most reliable comparing two spots in the same home.
Are my photos saved?
No, and there is no photo to save. The camera session runs with no photo or video output attached, so no frame is ever produced. Nothing is written to disk, nothing is uploaded, and nothing is added to your photo library.
Why does the reading change when I move?
Because the light does. That is the useful part. A spot two feet from a window and a spot across the room often differ by a factor of ten, and that difference is what decides whether something will grow there.
Verdant says my plant's spot is too dark.
Most indoor spots are darker than they look — eyes adapt, cameras do not. Either move the plant closer to a window, or choose a species that tolerates the light you actually have.
Can I use it without giving camera access?
Yes. Describe the spot instead — windowless, far from a window, north-facing, beside a bright window, on a sunny sill — and Verdant substitutes a typical midday figure for that kind of place. Everything after that behaves identically.
What does paying add?
The free app measures light, gives the verdict for any of the twenty plants, works out a watering interval and tracks two plants. Pro removes the two-plant limit, lists every plant that would thrive in a measured spot rather than the first six, and ranks the rooms in your home by the light they get.
Verdant Pro is $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year, and either begins with 7 days free. Nothing that is free today moves behind the paywall later.
To cancel, open Settings › your name › Subscriptions on your iPhone. Cancelling at least 24 hours before the period ends stops the next charge. Billing is handled entirely by Apple; refunds go through reportaproblem.apple.com.