The App
Roman Solar Time is an iOS application that revives an ancient but perennial way of marking time—by the sun. It divides the daylight and nighttime into twelve solar hours and four night vigils, dynamically recalculated based on your true local sunrise and sunset.
It displays a beautiful solar dial that reflects your position in the current hour or vigil using colours and structures inspired by monastic and astronomical tradition.
The Problem
In modernity, time has been flattened into mechanical uniformity. Digital clocks, calendar grids, and automated alerts sever our connection to the heavens and the natural rhythms that once ordered human life. Noon is no longer when the sun is highest. Daybreak and dusk are ignored by schedules. Humanity has become unmoored from nature’s order.
The Counterrevolution
Roman Solar Time is a counterrevolution in timekeeping. It is not about nostalgia—it is about restoration. By returning to a system where hours stretch and compress with the seasons, where sunrise and sunset anchor the cycle, we recover something vital: a sense of proportion, of limitation, of presence.
This app invites you not merely to measure time, but to dwell within it.
Release
The app is expected to release in November 2025 for iOS devices, sunlight permitting. A WatchOS companion will follow. Other platforms will be considered proportionate to interest.