ShadySide
A travel utility that reads your route, departure time, sun position, and weather context — then tells you which side of the bus, train, or car is likely to stay cooler.
Role
Design + build, solo
Stack
React · TS · Geo + solar math
Status
v1.5 · out of beta
Type
Travel utility · live
01 · Premise
IndexChapter 01
Premise
ShadySide is a shade-friendly travel planner: enter a start, a destination, and a departure time, and it compares the route direction with the estimated sun position and weather context to recommend the side of the vehicle more likely to stay cool. It is live, out of beta at v1.5, and reachable by anyone typing a real question into search.
Chapter 02
The problem
Long bus rides. Sun on your face, phone, or laptop screen. Everyone guesses which side to sit on, and most guess wrong — because the answer changes with the route’s direction, the time of day, the season, and every turn along the way. There is no permanent “shady side”.
This started with a real 2020 trip: four hours from Jalakandapuram to Coimbatore, on the wrong side, while the sun did exactly what the sun does. The inputs — route, clock, sun, weather — are all computable, so instead of guessing I built the tool I wanted before boarding.
Chapter 03
The insight
The shaded side is not east versus west. It is route geometry, time, date, and sun position — resolved across every segment of the trip.
A route moving east in the morning, west in the evening, or turning through several directions exposes different windows at different times. The recommendation has to reflect the whole journey, not one road.
Chapter 04
How it works
Route geometry, departure time, location, sun position, and weather context resolve into a single recommendation. The pipeline is four honest steps.
- 01
Read the route
Start, destination, and departure time become a sequence of directed segments.
- 02
Place the sun
The sun’s position is estimated per segment from the clock and coordinates.
- 03
Score each side
Segment direction vs. sun gives each side an exposure estimate; weather tempers it.
- 04
Say it plainly
The side with less expected sun wins — recalculate if boarding slips or the bus detours.
Scrub the departure time below to watch the sun cross the route and the recommendation flip. This is a simplified educational model, not the production algorithm.
06:00 sunrise east18:00 sunset west
Chapter 05
Product decisions
The difference between a neat calculator and a usable travel tool is a handful of product decisions.
One blunt answer
The output is “sit left” or “sit right”, not a heatmap. Per-segment detail and sun times are secondary evidence you can expand.
Time chips, not date pickers
“Now · +5 · +10 · +15 min” matches how people actually board buses. A full scheduler exists, but the fast path is one tap.
An honest disclaimer
Real shade shifts with clouds, trees, buildings, flyovers, and detours. The app calls itself a comfort guide, not a guarantee.
Product loops after the answer
v1.5 added recent and favourite routes, shareable result cards, a public status page, and clearer route tips.
Answer pages for real questions
Search queries like “bus sun side” became public answer pages (bus-shade, train-shade) that route back into the planner.
Mobile-first flow
The whole planner is built for a phone held one-handed at a bus stop — the moment the question actually gets asked.
Chapter 06
The experience
The live surface stays deliberately small: a planner, a blunt result, and the loops around it that make it a product rather than a demo.
- 01
Plan the journey
Start, destination, transit mode (bus, train, car), and a departure time.
- 02
Get the answer
A blunt “sit left / sit right” with the shaded share of the route.
- 03
Loop back
Recent and favourite routes, shareable result cards, and a public status page.
- 04
Answer pages
Bus-shade and train-shade guides that answer the exact search queries people use.
Chapter 07
Reception, honestly
The beta was small, but the feedback was specific enough to keep going — people understood the problem immediately. After 1,000+ shade recommendations, ShadySide moved out of beta as v1.5. It is now live, indexed, listed on Product Hunt, and reached by people typing real questions into search: “bus sun side”, “sit in shade train”, and “where to sit in a bus to avoid sunlight”. Those queries now shape the roadmap.
Lessons
What it taught me
- Ship the earliest useful version — strangers used it the same week.
- A niche idea can still be a real product if the problem is felt sharply enough.
- A blunt answer beats a clever visualization when someone is boarding a bus.
- Honesty is a feature: saying “comfort guide, not a guarantee” costs nothing and buys trust.