kairos outdoor
A good time to go outside
Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Kairos watches weather, air quality, tides, daylight, the moon, and your schedule, and points out the better windows for the things you do outside.
Kairos looks at the conditions that affect time outside — weather, air quality, tides, river flow, daylight, and the moon — and points out when they line up for the things you do outdoors.
You pick your activities and what matters for each: a temperature range, wind, clean air, a tide, a flow, morning light, golden hour. Kairos scores the hours ahead and shows the best windows today and in the days to come, with the conditions behind each one plotted so you can see why — not take it on faith.
Keep as many spots as you like for any activity — several fishing holes, ski mountains, surf breaks, or favorite walks — each scored on its own conditions and preferences. Rate how an outing went and Kairos quietly tunes future suggestions to what you actually head out in, per spot and entirely on your device.
When a window is genuinely unusual, Kairos can send a rare, specific notification — colder weather arriving after, an unusually calm day. Commit to a window, add it to your calendar, and invite a friend.
Activities include running, cycling, walking, beachcombing, tidepooling, surfing, fishing, skiing, rafting and kayaking, and stargazing — or create your own, pinned to a place. Any spot can also keep a USGS topographic map saved on your phone, so the terrain and your location on it work with no signal. A home and lock screen widget shows your current best window, and Kairos gives a heads-up before a full moon or a locally visible eclipse.
No accounts, no ads. Your location is used only to fetch local conditions; your preferences and history stay on your device. Conditions come from Apple Weather, NOAA tide predictions and river forecasts, and Open-Meteo air quality and marine data (licensed CC BY 4.0).
Ratings & Reviews
Notifications now arrive. Windows are scheduled ahead as well as checked in the
background, so an alert no longer depends on iOS granting the app a moment to run.
If 1.1 went quiet for you, this is the fix.
Share an activity or a spot. Send your setup for an activity — the conditions, and
any spots you choose — as a link. A shared spot carries its own settings and river
gauge, so it works the same on the other phone. Accepting a link never overwrites
settings you've already made: shared spots are added alongside your own, and you
see everything in the link before anything is added.
One permission at a time. Location, notifications, and calendar are now asked for
separately, each explained first, along with what still works if you decline.
Calendar offers a read-only choice.
A short introduction on first launch, before anything is asked of you.
What kairos is doing — a new screen showing whether background checks are running,
when the last one was, when the last alert was sent, and what's queued next.
Surf — both swell trains are now charted as Open-Meteo defines them, primary and
secondary, for height, period, and direction. Scoring reads both rather than
picking one: their heights combine the way their energy does, so two swells
running together make the bigger sea they actually make, while period and
direction are weighted by how much of the swell each one carries. A cleanliness
figure is charted alongside the match — chop's share of the energy, and a penalty
when the two swells run at each other instead of together.
Air quality is charted for activities it counts toward.
River flow — a level outside the range you set now counts against a window more
strictly, and a range set to a single figure no longer scores as a match.
Fixes — the widget no longer suggests activities you can't reach in time.
Stargazing after midnight is filed under the night it belongs to. Committing to an
hour moves other activities to their next best time instead of dropping them.
Beachcombing and tidepooling show their match chart and time picker. Past events no
longer read as "peak in -3 days". Ski conditions report snow at the spot's own
elevation. A pinned spot can also keep scoring where you are.
The developer, Douglas Overholser, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Location
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Douglas Overholser
- Size
- 9.5 MB
- Category
- Weather
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.6 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.6 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.6 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.3 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Douglas Overholser
