Tell us about a spot in your home. We'll give you an honest estimate of its light, and a shortlist of plants that can actually live there. Free, no sign-up.
Answer a few quick questions about the spot you have in mind.
Without knowing when, or whether, direct sun reaches the spot, any answer would be a guess, and we don't do fake confidence. Quick fix: glance at the spot on a clear day in the morning, at midday and in the late afternoon. Or skip the guessing entirely, the GrowSpot app measures the actual light at your spot with your phone.
Two spots one wall apart can be two different climates. The GrowSpot app measures the real light where your plant sits, checks temperature, humidity and airflow for that exact spot, re-scores it as seasons change, and tells you honestly when it can't assess something.
In the northern hemisphere, a north window gets no direct sun. Right at the glass you'll typically see bright indirect light (a few thousand lux on a clear day), which is comfortable for pothos, snake plants, ZZ plants, aglaonema and peace lilies. A few feet back it drops to low light quickly. South of the equator, flip this: it's the south window that behaves this way.
Much faster than it looks to your eyes. Light falls off roughly with the square of distance from the opening: a spot 2–3 meters from a window often receives less than a tenth of the light available right at the glass. This is the single most common reason a "bright room" still starves a plant in the corner.
Close to the glass: pothos, heartleaf philodendron, snake plant, ZZ plant, Chinese evergreen (aglaonema), peace lily, cast iron plant, bird's nest fern. These are widely agreed low-to-medium light performers. Further into the room, stick to snake plant and ZZ, and keep expectations modest — they survive more than they thrive.
Only as a starting point, and we'd rather say that plainly. A description can't capture your actual spot: window size, glass tint, seasons, what's outside. That's why this tool gives ranges, not precise numbers, and says "can't assess" when it genuinely can't. For a real reading, the GrowSpot app measures the light at your spot with your phone's sensors and keeps re-checking it through the year.