Lunar Phase Plugin

Show today's moon phase on your Busy Tag display

PDF version

This guide is also available as a PDF.

Overview

The Lunar Phase plugin shows today’s moon on your Busy Tag screen. You see:

• a picture of the moon, lit the way it looks tonight,
• the name of the phase, for example Waxing Gibbous,
• optionally, how much of the moon is lit, in percent,
• optionally, today’s date.

The plugin needs no account, sign-in or location. It updates itself shortly after midnight, so the screen always shows the current day. It also lights the Busy Tag LED in a warm moon yellow. You can change that colour.

Screen Examples

The eight phases

These are the screens you will see over one moon cycle, with the default settings (moon texture on, no percentage, date as October 14, 2026). The moon is drawn as seen from the Northern Hemisphere, so a growing (waxing) moon is lit on the right.

Display options

Status screens

Requirements

• The Busy Tag app on Windows, macOS, Android or iOS.
• A Busy Tag device added to the app.
• An internet connection. The plugin downloads a moon calendar for the current month.

No account, API key or sign-in is needed.

Adding the Plugin in Busy Tag

1. Open the Busy Tag app and select your device.
2. Go to Integrations in the navigation menu.
3. Open the Add Integrations tab.
4. Find Lunar Phase. You can type “Moon” or “Lunar” in the search box. Click Add.
5. In the Add Plugin window, keep the suggested name or enter your own. Confirm.
6. The plugin now appears in the My Integrations tab, and its configuration page opens automatically.

Configuring the Plugin

The configuration page opens automatically after you add the plugin. To open it again later, click the More Options button (…) next to the plugin in My Integrations and choose Configure. A preview next to the form shows today’s moon with your settings. Click Save to apply your changes.

Display

Setting	Default	Description
Show date	On	Show today’s date at the bottom of the screen.
Date format	October 4, 2026	How the date is written. Only shown when Show date is on. See the table below.
Show illumination percentage	Off	Add how much of the moon is lit after the phase name, for example Waxing Gibbous (78%).
Use moon texture	On	Draw the moon with a realistic surface (craters and “seas”). Turn it off for a smooth, flat moon.

Date formats.

Option	Example on screen
January 1, 2026	October 4, 2026
1 January 2026	4 October 2026
01/01/2026	10/04/2026 (month first)
01/01/2026 (DD/MM)	04/10/2026 (day first)
2026-01-01	2026-10-04

Colours

Setting	Default	Description
Background	#000000	Screen background colour.
Text	#FFFFFF	Colour of the Lunar Phase title and the date.
Accent	#7D2BC4	Colour of the phase name.
Light side	#F6F1D5	Colour of the lit part of the moon.
Dark side	#000000	Colour of the part of the moon in shadow.
Glow	#A8A48C	Colour of the soft glow around the moon’s edge.
LED	#FEC939	The colour the Busy Tag LED shows while the plugin is active. Choose black to keep the LED dark.

tip

For a moon that stands out from the background, keep Dark side slightly lighter than Background, for example a very dark grey (#202020) on black. The outline of the whole moon then stays visible even on a thin crescent.

Using the Plugin

Show it on your Busy Tag

In My Integrations, click the Activate button (▶) next to Lunar Phase. The plugin draws today’s moon and sends it to your Busy Tag. After that it updates by itself:

• a few seconds after midnight, when the date changes,
• every 6 hours (every 30 minutes after a failed download, until it works again),
• whenever you save new settings.

Interactive panel

On a computer or tablet, click Open to see the current screen in a panel inside the app. (The Open button is hidden on phones.)

Playlist

The plugin can rotate with your other integrations. Open More Options (…) and use Include in playlist and Duration to choose whether it is included and how long it stays on screen. Then click Start Playlist.

Reading the Display

The moon goes through all its phases in about 29.5 days. The phase name tells you where in that cycle the moon is today:

Phase name	What it means
New Moon	The moon is between the Earth and the Sun. It is (almost) invisible.
Waxing Crescent	A thin sliver, lit on the right, growing night by night.
First Quarter	The right half of the moon is lit.
Waxing Gibbous	More than half is lit, still growing.
Full Moon	The whole moon is lit.
Waning Gibbous	More than half is lit, now shrinking.
Last Quarter	The left half of the moon is lit.
Waning Crescent	A thin sliver, lit on the left, shrinking towards the next new moon.

The picture shows the moon as seen from the Northern Hemisphere: a growing (waxing) moon is lit on the right. In the Southern Hemisphere the moon looks mirrored, so the lit side is on the left.

The optional percentage is the share of the moon’s face that is lit: 0% at new moon, 50% at the quarters and 100% at full moon. The phase and date follow the date on your computer or phone.

Troubleshooting

What you see	What to do
Error loading moon data – Please check your connection	The plugin could not download the moon calendar. Check your internet connection. The plugin tries again every 30 minutes until it works, or right away when you activate it again.
Loading Lunar Phase… stays on screen.	The download is still running or has stalled. Check your internet connection.
The date or phase is a day off.	Check that the date and time zone on your computer or phone are correct.
The lit side is on the “wrong” side.	You are probably in the Southern Hemisphere. The picture always shows the Northern Hemisphere view (see Reading the Display).

Privacy

• The plugin does not use your location or any personal data.
• The plugin downloads the current month’s moon calendar from a public moon-phase service (icalendar37.net). Only the month and year are sent.
• The moon texture is built into the plugin. Nothing else is downloaded.
• To stop the plugin, delete it from My Integrations (… → Delete).