Learn FjordSpot.

🗺️ The map and HSI analysis

Map layers

Four map layers via the buttons at the top left:

• 🏔️ Topographic — Kartverket topo, a good overview of land and coast
• 🗺️ Nautical chart — depths, sea markers and fairways
• 🛰️ Satellite — aerial imagery, useful for the shoreline and bottom conditions
• 🧊 3D Seabed — the seabed in relief, with the camera tilted. Edges, trenches and pinnacles become easy to spot.

Depth contours

Depth contours appear automatically as you zoom in — 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 m — based on Kartverket's depth soundings (over 10 million depth soundings along the coast).

HSI analysis

Tap the map to analyse the habitat for the chosen species. You get a score from 0 to 100:

The score is a weighted average of six factors: depth, slope, BPI (ridge, hollow or flat?), complexity (variation in the seabed), substrate (rock, stone, gravel, sand or shell) and temperature.

Best now

Tap "Best now" to find the best spots in the current map view right now — HSI combined with the current tide, sea temperature and moon, marked with flags.

Flags or zones

Flags show individual spots; zones colour the area by score. Switch under Analysis in the bottom menu, or set the default in Settings → Analysis.

📇 My pages

Open My pages from the bottom menu — a carousel with five cards:

1. Latest catch — hero card with photo, trophy badge and a link to the details
2. My species — a grid of every species; the ones you've caught are marked
3. Community — link to the community feed
4. Settings — profile, map, notifications, privacy and data
5. Help and info — this guide, the changelog and the rules

Swipe sideways to move between the cards, or use the arrow keys.

🎣 Logging catches

Tap + New catch in the bottom menu. You can:

• Use your GPS position or tap the map to set the location
• Choose the species manually or use AI identification from a photo
• Enter length, weight, count and notes
• Mark it as a trophy if it's your biggest of the species
• Choose whether the catch is shared in the Community (an approximate position is shown, around half a kilometre from the real point)

Automatic environmental enrichment

When you save a catch with a position and time, FjordSpot automatically fetches the tide (high/low, level), weather (wind, pressure, temperature), moon phase and light, as well as sunrise/sunset — in the background within seconds.

🤖 AI species identification

FjordSpot has a built-in AI that recognises fish species from photos — it knows the species in the HSI model.

How to use it

1. In the catch form, tap the camera icon next to Species
2. Take a photo or upload one from your gallery
3. Wait a few seconds — you get the top 3 suggestions with confidence levels
4. Tap to confirm, or choose manually

Privacy: The photo is sent to Claude (Anthropic) for species identification. On a match, FjordSpot stores a downscaled copy on our own server in Norway to improve recognition. It is never shared publicly and is deleted when you delete your account.

🌊 Tides, weather and environmental data

Tides

Data from Kartverket — 48 tide stations along the whole Norwegian coast, from the south to Finnmark. You get the nearest station with the current level, the next high and low tide, and the trend (rising/falling).

Weather and wind

Weather forecasts from Meteorologisk institutt (yr.no): temperature, wind strength and direction, air pressure, wave height and cloud cover — updated regularly.

Moon and sun

The moon phase is calculated locally; sunrise/sunset comes from MET. The moon phase and light level affect the HSI for certain species.

🚢 Map layers — traffic, fisheries & nature types

FjordSpot pulls open data from Norwegian agencies and adds them as map layers you can toggle on/off via the Analysis menu:

BarentsWatch

• Ship traffic (AIS) — vessel positions in real time
• Fishing gear — active gear in the water
• Fish farms — sites with a 100 m no-fishing buffer

Fiskeridirektoratet

• Spawning areas — national spawning grounds
• Fishing grounds — zones for active and passive gear
• Coral reefs — registered reefs
• Coral reef bans — zones where trawling is prohibited

Marine nature types — Miljødirektoratet

• Eelgrass meadows — feeding grounds for coastal cod and sea trout
• Kelp forest — oarweed and sugar kelp
• Shell sand — mineral-rich seabed
• Soft bottom — silty seabed

Ocean — Meteorologisk institutt

• Wave map — wave height and sea state from the ocean forecast

⚠️ Fish Alone (solo mode)

A safety feature for those who fish alone:

1. Turn on Fish Alone in Settings → Safety
2. Start a session before you head out — add a contact person (name + email)
3. Choose a check-in interval (e.g. every 2 hours) and a grace period
4. The app reminds you to confirm that you're OK
5. If you don't confirm in time, your contact gets an alert with your last position
6. End the session once you're safely home

📡 Offline mode

FjordSpot works partly without a connection. Available offline:

• Map tiles you've viewed before (topo, nautical chart, satellite)
• The latest weather, wave and tide data (cached — as they were when you last had a connection)
• New HSI analyses you ask for: they're queued and run automatically once you're back online

Needs a connection: logging a new catch — both in the form and by voice — as well as photo species identification, the Community and syncing. Your spots and catches are not available offline either: those pages are deliberately never stored on the device, so nobody else can open them on a shared phone.

⚙️ Settings

Under My pages → Settings:

• My profile — display name, home region, years you've fished, bio
• Map — default map layer at startup
• Analysis — default species, radius (1–10 km), display mode, auto-analysis
• Notifications — push alerts for good conditions, threshold and species
• Privacy — profile visibility, sharing and approximate position
• Data — export GPX/JSON, delete spots/catches/account
• About FjordSpot — version, rules and contact

💬 Contact and help

Can't find the answer? Get in touch:

• Email: support@fjordspot.no
• See also Info and About FjordSpot

We reply as fast as we can — and we really appreciate feedback that makes the app better.