FAQ

Tidesy is a small, always-on display that shows tide predictions for your stretch of coast. It sits on your counter, shelf, or nightstand and tells you when the tide is coming in, when it is going out, and how high or low it will be throughout the day. It also shows current weather conditions and any coastal weather alerts from the National Weather Service.

Think of it as a weather station, but for the water. Instead of checking an app or a website every time you want to know the tides, you just glance at the display.

No. There is no app to install, no account to create, and no subscription to pay. Setup happens through a web browser on your phone or computer. After that, Tidesy runs on its own. You can also access a full web dashboard by typing tidesy.local into any browser on your home network.

No. Tidesy is a one-time purchase. All features work on day one and keep working forever. Tide data comes from NOAA, weather from MET Norway, and alerts from the National Weather Service. All three are free public government services. Firmware updates are delivered automatically at no charge. More about privacy and costs.

Plug Tidesy into any USB-C power source. On your phone or computer, join the WiFi network called TidesySetup (password: tide1234) and open 192.168.4.1 in a browser. A short wizard walks you through connecting your home WiFi, picking your tide stations, and setting display preferences. The whole process takes about ten minutes. Full setup guide.

The setup wizard: WiFi configuration and station selection

When you first plug in Tidesy, it does not know your home WiFi password. Since it has no keyboard and no app, it creates its own small, temporary WiFi network called TidesySetup. This is not your home WiFi — it is a separate network that only exists so your phone can talk to the Tidesy device directly.

Here is how to think about it:

• Your home WiFi is the network you use every day for your phone, laptop, and TV. It comes from your router and connects everything to the internet.
• TidesySetup is a temporary network created by the Tidesy device itself. It does not connect to the internet. Think of it like a walkie-talkie between your phone and Tidesy.

On your phone, go to WiFi settings (the same place where you normally choose your home WiFi). You will see TidesySetup in the list. Tap it and enter the password tide1234. Then open a browser and go to 192.168.4.1 — a setup page appears where you type in your real home WiFi name and password.

Once you save, Tidesy shuts down the temporary network, connects to your home WiFi on its own, and starts showing tides. Your phone goes back to your home WiFi automatically. You only do this once — after that, Tidesy remembers your WiFi and connects every time you plug it in.

If your phone shows a “no internet” warning when connected to TidesySetup, that is completely normal. Tap Stay Connected or Yes. If you type the wrong WiFi password, Tidesy brings TidesySetup back so you can try again.

Tidesy has two main display views. The Detail View shows a full 24-hour tide curve with a marker at the current time, so you can see exactly where you are in the tide cycle. The Large View shows the next four tide events (high, low, high, low) in big numbers you can read from across the room, along with whether the tide is currently rising or falling.

Both views also show current temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and any active weather alerts.

Detail View (left) and Large View (right)

Those are your warning level and preferred range. You set them during setup. The warning level is a red dashed line at a tide height you want to watch out for, like water reaching your dock or property. The preferred range is a shaded zone around the tide levels that are best for your activity, whether that is fishing, clamming, or beach walking. They help you see at a glance whether today's tides hit your sweet spot.

Yes. Open any browser on your phone and type tidesy.local. You get a full web dashboard with interactive tide charts, weather alerts, a station map, and dark mode. It works on any phone, tablet, or computer connected to the same WiFi network as your Tidesy. No app to install.

Tidesy comes in five models. TidesyL (7") and TidesyM (5") have color touchscreens where you can tap the graph for exact values. TidesyS+ (3.5") and TidesyS (2.8") are compact color displays that fit anywhere. TidesyINK (4.2") uses an e-paper screen with no backlight, runs on battery power, and looks like printed paper. All five models have the same features. The only differences are screen size, touch capability, and display type. Compare all models.

Just three things: a USB-C cable, a power source (any phone charger or USB port rated 5V 2A), and a 2.4 GHz WiFi network with internet access. Tidesy ships with the device and a stand. That is everything.

During setup, Tidesy downloads the full NOAA station directory and suggests the ones nearest to your location, listed with distances in miles. You can also search by station name or NOAA ID, or filter by state. Pick one to three stations. Most people start with the one closest to home and add more later to compare conditions at different spots along the coast.

Set a warning level at the tide height where something matters to you: water reaching your dock, a sandbar covering over, or your boat hitting bottom. A red dashed line appears on every graph at that height. Set a preferred range around the levels that produce the best conditions for your activity. A shaded band appears on the graph highlighting that zone. Both work on the device display and the web dashboard, so you can see at a glance whether today's tides hit your thresholds.

Tidesy checks the National Weather Service every six minutes for active alerts at your location. Alerts are color-coded by severity: Minor (gray), Moderate (yellow), Severe (orange), and Extreme (red). Types most relevant to coastal users include Coastal Flood Advisories, High Surf Warnings, Rip Current Statements, Small Craft Advisories, Tsunami Watches, and Beach Hazards Statements. Each alert shows what is happening, where it affects, when it starts and ends, and what impacts to expect.

Set the hours when night mode starts (PM) and ends (AM). During those hours, the screen dims to a brightness level you choose. Day brightness ranges from 1 to 100 percent. Night brightness ranges from 0 to 100 percent. Set night brightness to zero and the screen turns completely off during sleeping hours and comes back on automatically in the morning with fresh data. Perfect for bedrooms and nightstands.

Yes. Tidesy remembers up to 30 WiFi networks and auto-connects to the strongest known one. It also remembers your location and station settings for each network. Move it between your home and a beach house and it automatically switches to the right stations and settings for wherever it is.

The web dashboard at tidesy.local gives you interactive tide charts for every station (hover or tap for exact values), detailed weather alert cards, an interactive map with station markers and your home location, dark and light mode, and an "At a Glance" view that shows all stations side by side. It is fully responsive on phones, tablets, and computers. No app, no account. See the full dashboard.

The web dashboard in light and dark mode

Yes. Tidesy checks for firmware updates every time it boots. Critical fixes install automatically. Optional updates show a notification on the device and the web dashboard so you can install when convenient. You can also update via microSD card. Every update is logged with date, version, and source. There is no charge for updates.

On color LCD models (TidesyL, TidesyM, TidesyS, TidesyS+), six color pickers let you customize the graph fill, number colors, warning band, and preferred band. Match your decor or make the data stand out the way you prefer. TidesyINK is black and white only.

If you own a Vestaboard Flagship, Tidesy can send live tide data to it over your local network. The split-flap tiles display three cycling views: a detailed tide schedule with a color bar graph, an at-a-glance summary with current tide and trend, and an alert view when weather warnings are active. You choose the update interval (match the device, or cycle on its own every 20 minutes to 2 hours) and configure eight tile colors. You need the Vestaboard Flagship (not the Note), a local API key, and both devices on the same WiFi network. Full Vestaboard guide.

No. The web dashboard at tidesy.local is served directly from the Tidesy device on your local network. It is not accessible from outside your home. This is by design: everything stays local, private, and under your control. There is no cloud service in between.

NOAA operates a network of approximately 1,200 harmonic tide stations across the U.S. coastline. Each station has decades of recorded water level data. Using this historical data, NOAA builds mathematical models called harmonic analyses that decompose tidal patterns into constituent frequencies (M2, S2, N2, K1, O1, and dozens more). These harmonic constants are then used to predict future water levels at six-minute intervals.

Tidesy fetches 240 of these predictions per station per cycle, covering the full 24-hour day. The predictions are tide heights in feet above or below the station's reference datum. This is the same data that mariners, coastal engineers, and emergency managers rely on.

MLLW stands for Mean Lower Low Water. It is the average height of the lowest daily tide at a station over a 19-year tidal epoch (the current epoch is 1983-2001). All NOAA tide heights are measured relative to this datum. A reading of 0.0 means the water is at the long-term average low mark. A positive number means the water is above that mark. A negative number means it is unusually low, below the average low tide.

Understanding MLLW helps you interpret the numbers. When Tidesy shows a high tide of 6.2 feet, that is 6.2 feet above the average lowest daily tide at that station. When it shows -0.5 feet, the water is half a foot below that mark, which means more exposed beach, shallower channels, and potentially better clamming conditions.

Every six minutes, Tidesy contacts three public APIs:

NOAA Tides & Currents (tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov): tide predictions and the station directory. Free, public, no authentication required.

National Weather Service (api.weather.gov): active weather alerts for the device's coordinates. Free, public, no authentication required.

MET Norway (api.met.no): current temperature, wind speed, and wind direction. Free, public, no authentication required.

During initial setup only, ip-api.com is used for approximate location detection to suggest nearby stations. All processing happens on the device. No data passes through a middleman cloud service.

Every six minutes, Tidesy fetches a fresh set of 240 tide predictions for each configured station (up to three), covering the full 24-hour day at six-minute intervals. It checks for active NWS weather alerts at the device coordinates. It fetches current weather conditions (temperature, wind) from MET Norway. All data is processed on the device and rendered to the display and web dashboard. If multiple stations are configured, the display rotates to the next station on each cycle.

Tidesy operates fully locally. There is no cloud service, no account, no login, and no telemetry of any kind. The device does not phone home or report usage statistics. WiFi passwords are encrypted using AES-128 on the device's flash memory. The only data sent to external services are geographic coordinates for fetching location-specific weather, alerts, and tide data. No names, email addresses, or other personal information are transmitted. The web dashboard is served from the device's built-in web server on your local network.

Tidesy uses mDNS (Multicast Domain Name System) to advertise itself on your local network as tidesy.local. This is the same zero-configuration networking protocol that Apple devices use for AirPlay and printers use for network discovery. When you type tidesy.local in a browser, your device resolves the hostname to the Tidesy's local IP address without needing a DNS server. mDNS is also how Tidesy discovers a Vestaboard Flagship on the same network during Vestaboard setup.

NOAA harmonic predictions model astronomical tides: the gravitational effects of the moon and sun. They do not account for real-time meteorological conditions like storm surge, strong onshore winds, or barometric pressure changes, which can push actual water levels significantly above or below predicted values. Tidesy displays the predicted tide, not the observed water level. The weather alert system partially fills this gap by flagging NWS advisories for coastal flooding, high surf, and storm surge, but the tide graph itself reflects the harmonic prediction only.

Disclaimer: Tidesy tide predictions are for informational and recreational purposes only. Do not use for navigation or safety-critical decisions. Always verify with official NOAA sources.

Tidesy communicates with the Vestaboard Flagship using its local API over HTTP on your LAN. During setup, Tidesy uses mDNS to discover any Flagship devices on the network. You provide the 22-character local API key from your Vestaboard's settings (available at docs.vestaboard.com). All communication is direct between the two devices on your local network. No internet is required for the Tidesy-to-Vestaboard link. Only the Vestaboard Flagship is supported; the Vestaboard Note uses a different API and is not compatible.