My Lightning Tracker Pro

My Experience with My Lightning Tracker Pro

I’ve had this app for a little over a month now, and I really tried to give it a fair shot. I’m the type of person who reads the fine print and tests every single feature before I even think about paying for anything extra. I got it because I work outside doing landscaping, and last summer I had a real scare when a storm rolled in fast while I was mowing a lawn on the south side of town. My phone gave me no warning, and I barely made it to my truck. So I wanted something that would actually alert me before lightning got too close. For the first week, I was impressed. The map loaded quickly on my iPhone 15 Pro, and I could see little strike icons popping up in real time. It felt cool and scientific. But then, during an actual storm last Tuesday afternoon—around 3:45 PM—I got an alert for a strike that was supposedly 5 miles away, but I could already hear the thunder rolling right overhead. That shook my trust a bit. The app works, but it’s not as sharp or quick as I’d hope for something I need to rely on for safety.

Features Worth Noting

I’ll give credit where it’s due. The live lightning map is the main draw, and it does show strikes pretty accurately on a zoomable interface. I liked being able to tap on a strike and see the exact time and distance from my location. The real-time alerts are customizable—you can set the distance radius from 5 to 50 miles, which is nice. I keep mine at 10 miles. The app also has a radar overlay, which is a bonus if you want to see rain clouds along with lightning. I found the historical data interesting too; you can look back at strike patterns over the past few days or weeks. That’s a neat feature for curiosity, but I’m not sure it helped me plan my work week better. One thing I was skeptical about was the “severe weather alerts” feature. These are basically the same warnings you get from the free weather channel app on your phone. So that’s nothing special. The app also shows a purple line for “strike density” which is supposed to tell you where lightning hit the most. Honestly, it looked like a blob most of the time. Not super useful for day-to-day decisions.

What Needs Work

Here’s where my budget-conscious brain gets loud. The app is already paid—I think I shelled out around $3.99 or $4.99 upfront, I don’t remember exactly. But then there are in-app purchases for something called “Pro Analytics” and “Ad-Free Experience.” Wait, I already paid for the app! Why are there still ads? Yes, there are banner ads at the bottom of the screen that slow things down on my iPhone 15 Pro. It felt like a cheap move. Another big gripe: the app drains battery like crazy. On a full work day with the map open for about an hour, my battery dropped by 30%. That’s a lot. Also, the notification system is inconsistent. Sometimes I’d get an alert for a single strike 20 miles away, but nothing for a cluster of strikes 8 miles away. I tested this by comparing it to a free lightning website on my laptop. Twice, the website showed strikes happening that the app didn’t register until 10 minutes later. For a safety app, that delay is concerning. And the support team took three whole days to respond to my email about this lag issue. Their answer was polite and helpful, but a few days is a lifetime during storm season.

Pricing

Let’s talk money because that’s what matters to me. The upfront cost is reasonable—under five bucks. But I hate the feeling of being nickel-and-dimed. The app has a “Premium Upgrade” for $6.99 a year that removes ads and gives you faster refresh rates. So if you want the app to actually work well, you’re looking at about $11 total for the first year. That’s not terrible, but I feel like a paid app should be fully functional without a subscription. The free version of the app (My Lightning Tracker, without the Pro) has the same features but with more ads and slower updates. I tested that too for a week. It’s basically unusable during a storm because the ads cover half the map. So they force you to pay for the Pro version, then ask for more money to make it run smoothly. That’s frustrating. If you’re a casual user who just wants to glance at lightning once in a while, stick with the free version and deal with the ads. But if you’re like me and need decent performance during storms, budget for the upgrade.

Developer Notes

The developer, jRustonApps B.V., seems to be a small team. I appreciate that they include a changelog in the app store showing updates every few months. They fixed a crash bug that was happening on iPhones with iOS 17.2, which affected me briefly. So they’re not lazy. But the lack of transparency about the notification delay is a problem. When I emailed support, they said “network latency can affect real-time data.” That’s a fancy way of saying it’s not actually real-time. I wish they’d just be honest about that in the app description. Also, the help section inside the app is basic—just a few FAQs and a contact form. No live chat or phone number. For a safety-related app, I’d expect faster support. They did respond eventually, and the rep was friendly and gave me a coupon code for 50% off the yearly premium upgrade. That was a nice gesture, but it felt like a bribe to get me to rate the app higher. I didn’t use it.

Security & Privacy

I checked the privacy policy before buying. The app collects your location data to show nearby strikes and send alerts. That’s expected. They also collect device ID and usage data for analytics. According to the policy, they don’t sell your data to third parties, which is good. But they say they share anonymized data with weather partners to improve tracking accuracy. I’m not thrilled about that, but it’s standard for weather apps. One thing that bothered me: the app asks for “precise location” even when it’s running in the background. I denied that permission at first, and the alerts stopped working entirely. So you have to give them full location access all the time if you want the app to function. That’s a privacy trade-off that might not sit well with everyone. On the plus side, the app doesn’t require access to your photos, contacts, or microphone, which is refreshing compared to some bloated apps. I also didn’t notice any sketchy battery usage when the app was closed, which is a good sign for privacy.