Sasha Weather Free: Simple is the name of the game

Developer: Sasha Lab

Category: Weather 

Audience: Anyone who goes outside

The Beginning

There is definitely no shortage of weather apps available in the Play Store and for good reason. Weather apps are some of the most vital apps that people have on their phones. Whether it is just to check the forecast before leaving the house or getting alerts of severe weather before it arrives, a weather app is essential for any smartphone user.

You can find weather apps that provide you with so much information it can feel overwhelming and difficult to find what you are actually looking for. Today, we aren’t looking at a robust and feature-packed app, but instead, one that simply wants to tell you the weather. Sasha Weather Free is not robust…at all actually. But what it is is a good, simple way to see the current temperature and the current 7-day forecast for your current location or a manual location that you pick.

The Middle

Let’s start with the permissions that are needed for this app. First in order to automatically find the weather where you are, the app needs access to your location. It will work without allowing this, but it’s nice to not worry about manually putting in your location every time you want to look at the forecast. The second is to allow the app to access photos,media, and files. This one is a little riskier as I am not sure why the app needs to be able to read and delete things from your phone. So use your own discretion before allowing this (I did not allow it on my phone).

Once we get past the permissions it’s time to dive into the app. Remember this is a really simple app but it gets the job done. The first thing that CATches your eye is the cat theme. (See what I did there?) The first action I took was to change all the settings to things that made sense to me: Fahrenheit, MPH, inches, those types of things. Just tap the hamburger button on the top left and click units to change these.

Once you come out of the Settings panel, you will notice the big weather icon in the middle of the screen. This changes depending on the current weather. So if it’s sunny out, you will have a big sun shining; at night, you get a nice little moon and stars animation; if it’s partly cloudy, there is the sun with some clouds over it; I think you get the picture. Scroll down just a little and you see the current temp and a message from Sasha the Cat.

Moving down the page, we see today’s high and low. Clicking on this box gives us even more information about today’s weather. You’ll find the standard weather app info here: hourly forecast, precipitation, and some more details about what’s going on outside right now. Scrolling to the bottom gives us the rest of the 7-day forecast. There is also an ad at the bottom of the page for other apps from Sasha Labs, but it is minor and fairly unobtrusive.

For those widget lovers out there, Sasha Weather also comes with two home screen widgets: the first is the Cat theme with all the current weather information, and the second is a more “normal’ widget that gives current info along with a 7-day forecast. You can place these on your homescreen for glanceable weather details.

As far as usage and accuracy go, Sasha seemed to get my location even before better-known apps, and the temperatures seem just as or more accurate than Weather Bug (my main weather app). For a newer weather app, I have been impressed with how fast and accurate Sasha Weather is.

The End

Overall this app provides the needed info to know whether you will need your rain coat or snow boots before going outside. It is not as robust as some others but gets the job done and looks pretty good while doing it. The most important feature of a weather app is to tell you the weather, and Sasha Weather hits the nail on the head in that respect.

It does not use Material Design so that takes it down a notch or two in my book. The cat theme is a little strange to me, but I won’t hold that against it. If you just need the basics and don’t want to mess with all the bells and whistles of some of the other weather apps out there then you should give Sasha Weather Free a try.

App Link: Sasha Weather Free