See Exactly Where Your Panels Should Sit Pro

Overlay Mode puts a green overlay of your panel into your camera view — at its real size, positioned and tilted for the charging window you pick. Match the real panel to the overlay and you're set. It's on iPhone and Android, and the overlay is the same on both.

Panel Mode instead? Setting your panel to the degree — the precision sibling of this guide.

The overlay is the instruction

The overlay is drawn from your saved panel dimensions, so it's your panel on screen — five folds of blanket if that's what you run — sitting at the exact position and tilt that gets the most charge for the window you've chosen. No arrows to interpret, no bearing to read off and pace out. The panel goes where the overlay is. That's the whole system.

Two things need to be true before you start. The panel has to be ticked in Your Gear as one of the panels in the rig you're running — Overlay Mode only offers ticked panels, and it positions one at a time. And it wants that panel's dimensions. Leave them blank and the overlay still draws, sized from the wattage instead, and the panel picker flags it · dimensions needed.

The app's own note on the dimension field says why the two minutes with a tape measure are worth it: no phone can reliably measure a panel by camera, because a dark, light-absorbing surface is the hardest thing there is for a sensor to see. So the app never tries to guess your panel's shape off the picture — it draws what you told it.

It's a sun tool, so it works in daylight. Once the app has a position fix it knows whether the sun is up; after dark the AR screen waits for morning, with how far below the horizon the sun is printed underneath.

On iPhone — aim and tap

Open AR Solar Alignment from the menu and choose Overlay Mode (if you've got more than one panel saved, pick which one you're placing). Then:

1. Point the camera at your panel — or the spot the panel's going. If it's taking a moment you'll see Looking for a surface and Move the phone slowly side to side. That slow sweep is how the phone builds its picture of the ground.
2. A reticle appears with the line Aim at centre of panel. Put the circle on the middle of it.
3. TAP TO LOCK — tap, and the overlay drops in.

Every iPhone runs this same flow. What changes between models is the quality of the reading underneath it, not the steps. iPhones with a depth scanner read the panel's surface directly and work the tilt out from it. iPhones without one work it out from the geometry of the shot — where the panel meets the ground, how far away you are, how high you're holding the phone. Same tap, same overlay — and a measured tilt only ever appears when the reading behind it has earned it.

On Android — mark the front edge

Same start: AR Solar Alignment → Overlay Mode. Android gets there differently. There's no tap-to-lock: the app fixes the ground by itself, and then you mark the panel's front edge on it with two taps, rather than pointing at the middle of the panel.

1. Point the camera at your panel and sweep slowly. If it's taking a moment you'll get the same card the iPhone shows — Looking for a surface, Move the phone slowly side to side. The app fixes the ground itself the instant it has one. Nothing to tap for this bit.
2. Holding it upright, you'll get a nudge — Turn your phone sideways, because The whole panel fits in frame, and the ends are easier to tap. It's a suggestion, not a rule: it clears itself after a few seconds and portrait still works.
3. The prompt reads Tap one end of the panel, where it meets the ground, then Now tap the other end. Tap the two outer ends of the panel's front edge — the order doesn't matter. A line joins your two dots.
4. The app checks in — Does the line sit along the front of your panel? — and you can Drag a dot to nudge it before you tap Looks right. Start again is there if the line's nowhere near.

That line is doing two jobs at once: it tells the app where your panel is and which way it's facing. On iPhone the app infers the facing from where you're standing; here you've drawn it.

It coaches as you go. Dots too close together and it says That looks shorter than your panel — try the outer ends. If your taps are already jammed against the edge of the frame it asks instead for Step back a little — both ends of the panel need to be in frame. Tap the same spot twice and you get Those are the same spot. Confirm the line and the overlay drops in, exactly as it does on iPhone.

Why two methods, one outcome

iPhones and Android phones sense the world differently, so each platform uses the method its hardware does best. Apple's ARKit builds a model of the surfaces in front of you as you aim the camera, so one tap on the panel is enough to place the overlay. Google's ARCore is strongest at holding a flat ground plane steady, so Android uses that: fix the ground, then let you draw the panel's front edge on it with two taps. One method reads the panel; the other has you point it out.

Different road in, the same overlay at the end of it. It's drawn from the same saved dimensions, set to the same tilt target for the window you picked, and the watts on the bar come from one shared calculation — the same one the main screen uses, so the two can't disagree about your panel. Everything after the overlay lands works the same on both.

Pick your window — charge for the hours, not the minute

The pills across the screen — Now · +3h · +6h · Planned · BCW — re-position the overlay for the timeframe you pick. Now is now; BCW is today's Best Charging Window, worked out from the actual conditions at your spot. Pick a different window and you'll see the overlay move — the sun's path across your window is a different target from the sun's position this minute.

You won't always see all five. Planned only appears once you've set a planned charge, and BCW only when today's forecast actually yields a window to point at. Now, +3h and +6h are always there.

Positioning for the whole window beats re-positioning every hour. Set up for the BCW in the morning and the panels are right for the best hours of the day — then get on with the day.

Match the overlay — and what the bar is telling you

Re-position the real panel until it sits where the overlay sits. The overlay is the live part. It's anchored in the world, so it stays put while you walk round and shift the panel, and closing the gap between panel and overlay is the whole job.

The bar underneath is a different kind of thing, and it's worth knowing which: it's a reading taken at the moment you locked, not a live meter. If it said you had 9% more power at optimal when you scanned, it still says 9% while you're moving the panel, because the app has no way to watch a panel turn.

After about ten seconds the bar stops making the comparison altogether and settles to Achievable at optimal — the watts the overlay's position is worth. That's the honest thing to show once the reading has aged out.

So the loop is: match the overlay by eye, then tap Re-scan for a fresh score. A re-scan takes seconds and gives you a reading of where the panel is now. If it comes back Aligned to optimal, you're done.

The percentage itself is real — your watts at the panel's position against your watts at the overlay's position, under the actual sky. On a heavily overcast day the gain reads modest, because that's what the day honestly has to give, and that's exactly the number you want when you're deciding whether the shuffle is worth it. If the app couldn't work out where your panel was pointing, it withholds the comparison rather than inventing one.

Three buttons finish the job: Re-scan, End Session, and Panel Mode — the precision handoff. Overlay gets the panel where it should go; Panel Mode lies the phone on it and dials in the final degrees. If you're chasing every watt, finish there.

When it says no, that's the feature working

Overlay Mode refuses rather than guesses. Aim the camera at the sky, at ground it hasn't mapped yet, or tap somewhere it can't stand behind, and you'll get Couldn't lock that spot — Move a little and try again. A step sideways and a fresh try is nearly always the fix.

The same honesty runs underneath, and it's quieter. On iPhone the app cross-checks the direction the camera thinks it's facing against the compass, and if the two disagree it throws the lock away rather than draw a confident overlay pointing the wrong way. You don't get an error for this — the overlay simply doesn't appear and you tap again. Three refusals in a row and it backs out to the mode screen rather than keep you tapping at a bad reading.

A magnetic phone case, a magnetic mount, or a steel roof rack right beside you will swing any phone's compass, and that's the usual cause. Take the phone out of the case, step away from the metal, and try again.

Wondering what a proper set-up is worth? On a clear winter day at around 35° latitude, a guessed set-up — angled, but not quite facing towards the equator and usually set too flat — returns about 67% of what the same panel gives set properly. In summer, with the sun high, a guess costs far less; the further you are from the equator the more winter bites. The setup guide has the full ladder, and if your panel's a blanket, the blanket guide covers the set-up end of it.

Put the panels where the charge is

Overlay Mode is part of Solar Spotter Pro — a one-off purchase, no subscription, on iPhone and Android. Overlay Mode needs a phone that supports its platform's AR services; a handful of older Android handsets don't, and on those Panel Mode is the one to use. Both live behind the same one-off purchase, and your data stays on your phone.

Zero data collection · Your data stays on your phone