[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a app that uses NFC as a physical sw...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: I made a app that uses NFC as a physical switch to block
distractions
Hi HN! Super proud to showcase Foqos! I wanted to create a way to
physically block apps on my phone, always had a bunch of NFC tags,
combined the 2 together over the holiday break and Foqos was born.
You can create profiles, write them to NFC tags and track your
weekly focus. Its completely open source and will always be free!
There is an affiliate link in the app for nfc tags and donations
are completely optional Link here:
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/foqos/id6736793117
Author : awaseem
Score : 127 points
Date : 2025-01-21 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foqos.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foqos.app)
| pvg wrote:
| I might be missing it on your page but can't seem to find the
| link to your source repo.
| awaseem wrote:
| That is totally my fault. Repo here:
| https://github.com/awaseem/foqos
| mikodin wrote:
| This is awesome, yay for an open source https://getbrick.app/
|
| I'm curious if you have an NFC tag that you'd recommend or that
| you like to use?
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah there is tags in the app you can buy that just links out
| to Amazon, just a disclaimer it is an affiliate link.
|
| Otherwise this is what I had around the house:
| https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B075MD13Z7
| compootr wrote:
| I was intrigued by brick, now this, and can't use either. is
| there seriously no android app like these? :(
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah I think the reason is the family activity on iOS is so
| easy to build around. I'm really sorry I don't own an android
| phone or have time to port it :(
| yard2010 wrote:
| ...on the other hand, it's open source so everybody can port
| this themselves!
| high_priest wrote:
| ScreenZen works great. One would have to convince the dev to
| include NFC support.
| netsharc wrote:
| Tasker has NFC reading capabilities and is programmable to do
| stuff when it detects an NFC ID, I don't know if it can lock
| the phone though (there's an app called Lock My Phone, and
| Tasker has the ability to cause apps to take some actions, but
| I don't know if both can be combined).
|
| E.g. I have 2 NFC tags on my desk, when Tasker detects one of
| them, it calls a HTTP URL of a PHP script on my NAS, the script
| tells my Hue Bridge to switch on a Hue-enabled power socket
| (into which my monitor and speakers are plugged), and then the
| script sends a Wake-On-LAN packet to my desktop PC. The other
| one turns off that Hue-enabled power socket (I put my computer
| into sleep separately).
| GOATS- wrote:
| It would've been nice to see what the apps looks like when
| they're blocked.
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah 100% gonna update the demos, thank you for the feedback!
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Neat! Any idea if it'd be possible to make this work with macOS
| as well? I don't think Macs have NFC, but they do sync things
| like Do Not Disturb states between iOS and macOS.
| awaseem wrote:
| I can look into it, I tried to find a way to trigger Focus
| modes on iOS a profile being active and it seems they only
| allow you to read the state and no write or update it
| filoleg wrote:
| I might be misreading what you are asking, but I just went
| into Shortcuts app and tried creating a new one, and there
| are both "Get Current Focus" and "Set Focus" actions.
|
| Is this what you were looking for? "Set Focus" allows setting
| any focus mode (including custom ones, you can see one in my
| screenshot) on/off. And if you choose "on", there is an
| additional conditional afterwards (until manually turned
| off/until time/until leaving location/until a calendar event
| ends).
|
| Here is a screenshot of how it looks
| (https://ibb.co/R6gdRq4).
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah I can't find a clear way to do this from Swift and
| APIs apple exposes. I can be very wrong though and just
| didn't dig hard enough
| filoleg wrote:
| Ah, you were trying to do it through Swift/within an
| actual app, thanks for clarifying.
|
| I think you are right, I couldn't find a way to directly
| set status from within Swift, but there is a somewhat
| janky workaround I thought of. You should be able to have
| Shortcut hooks within your app (i.e., once the shortcut
| is triggered, it triggers an action within your app; or,
| inversed, have your app trigger a shortcut), and then
| have an official companion Shortcut for your users they
| can install with a single click. There might be other
| valid approaches, but they all seem to involve Shortcuts
| in some way.
|
| However, it is definitely a suboptimal approach, compared
| to just doing it all within the app (which I couldnt find
| a way to do either).
| awaseem wrote:
| Maybe they'll add it in the next wwdc!
| Unearned5161 wrote:
| Neat implementation! Big fan of integrating more NFC into apps.
| There's something satisfying and reassuring about the physicality
| of it all.
|
| I'll add a vote to whoever has the time to port it over to
| android =)
| amanda99 wrote:
| I'm finding that scanning NFC tags is pretty slow with iPhone.
| There's this automatic flow that's pretty cumbersome and slows me
| down. Then when it fails there's some annoying animation. This is
| with the Yubikey authenticator app.
|
| Are you finding anything similar? Is it not annoying to be
| scanning these all the time?
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah I also find Ghost scans happen, it happens where I try to
| scan a tag and it says something has been scanned even though
| I'm no where close to the tag. I think its an issue with
| NFCReader in iOS
| fuddle wrote:
| It would be nice to see a demo of the app working in the real
| world with an nfc tag, not just an app recording.
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah, I have no idea how these tags are actually being used,
| let alone why they could be useful.
| hailruda wrote:
| NFC tags can be scanned using a phone. An app on the phone
| can then detect the action and act accordingly. The phone can
| differentiate between different tags.
|
| I use an NFC tag to lock the house using Home Assistant.
| amelius wrote:
| OK. Why not just tap "lock the house" on your screen? Or
| use a voice interface (which requires zero extra hardware)?
| awaseem wrote:
| I have a recording on the site here:
| https://youtu.be/70C7L0T1VVY.
|
| That is my real phone with me scanning a tag, I'm just using
| screen studios new phone recording feature
| layer8 wrote:
| By the way, you can trigger iOS shortcuts with NFC tags, so in
| principle you can trigger any functionality exposed as a Shortcut
| action. However, NFC recognition doesn't always work as smoothly
| as one would hope.
| _tariky wrote:
| It depends on the type and manufacturer of the NFC chip. I
| recommend using SLIX2 chips; they are a bit more expensive, but
| they work perfectly.
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah 100% I think I commented this somewhere else as well. Your
| phone already has this natively built in, you don't need any of
| these apps at all.
|
| Over the break I wanted to build something that was gonna make
| this easier for myself. I built it and made it totally free and
| open source. I don't see a competitive advantage, but just a
| fun challenge for myself to build and get this type of app
| reviewed.
|
| Maybe I'll write a blog post about the apple review submission
| because that was a not fun lol
| 1f60c wrote:
| Why isn't the app available in the Netherlands?
| phindmarsh wrote:
| Seems to be unavailable in New Zealand too.
| parkersweb wrote:
| Would be great if it was available in the UK too!
| tigereyeTO wrote:
| I'm curious why the NFC tags are required at all?
|
| Can't you switch profiles on your phone without scanning an NFC
| tag already? Couldn't your app allow profile switching without
| requiring any NFC tags?
|
| It's not clear to me what the NFC tags add to this experience.
| kojeovo wrote:
| I think its so that you can't easily toggle them off by using
| the phone software. for example, you are trying to get work
| done so you set two up: a focus one by your desk, another
| somewhere else where you have to get up. so you have to get up
| and walk over to the 2nd one to turn off the focus mode
| enoch_r wrote:
| It's a commitment device - e.g. leave your "mindless scrolling"
| NFC tag at home so you don't mindlessly scroll while you're
| out.
| wduquette wrote:
| I was wondering that myself. At a guess, you put a tag at each
| focus location for the kind of focus you do at that location.
| At your desk, you put a tag that enables your working focus. At
| your bedside, you put a tag that enables your sleep focus.
|
| Sounds cool but unnecessary.
| dingnuts wrote:
| necessary for those of us who forget what they're doing
| whenever they open their phone. The ability to tell my phone
| "shut up I'm at my desk" without opening it and being
| confronted with the home screen & notifications (and then
| forget what I was doing) is a super cool idea.
|
| I have ADHD though
| hecanjog wrote:
| It appealed to me since the way I block distractions is easy
| for me to unblock them, too. (like HN, I unblocked it to look
| for commentary on the bitbucket outage and now I'm reading
| random articles)
|
| If unblocking via software is easy too, this doesn't really
| work, but I could see giving the physical tag to a friend or
| leaving it somewhere in a different building causing enough
| friction for me to reconsider if I really want to go to the
| effort just to look at some news headlines.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| what I want is social screentime approval
|
| on iphone, the built in screentime app is just a face id
| approval or your pin code, but what if instead you had to
| request approval and your friends on FindMy were the only
| people that could approve, by consensus
| riso wrote:
| The app does allow manually switching of profiles, without NFC
| tags, but it wasn't clear until I installed the app.
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah lot of feedback on better demos, learning moment for
| sure!
| awaseem wrote:
| yeah 100% you can totally just use whats built into your phone,
| there's actually no need for any of these apps.
|
| I found that having this physical deterrent keeps myself
| accountable, that's kinda the reason I built it and showcased
| it
| PaulHoule wrote:
| NFC tags cost about 20 cents and they are easy to use, tied to
| a place, etc.
|
| I've done a lot of thinking about cyberphysical art that used
| to look like
|
| https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111013706271196029
|
| and now look like
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social/post/3lbqfh7pesc2x
|
| Notably with the QR code on the back I found people didn't
| understand the branding of the card and had to flip it over to
| know the affordances it offers which didn't work when the card
| was stuck to the wall, as in
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social/post/3lbftgz6kok2c
|
| I researched NFC tags as an option here and bought a 100 pack
| and a Sony FeliCa reader but found the problem of
| "communicating the affordance is available" was much worse,
| there's no standard logo (except one that belongs to the banks
| that they wouldn't give me permission to use) and not much
| awareness. I was irritated that NFC support is limited in
| iPads, for instance. So I stuck with QR codes that people
| understand.
| ajoseps wrote:
| I use the brick app: https://getbrick.app/, and it works pretty
| well, but they have this weird bug where selecting certain apps
| on a block list crashes the app. They have a pop-up indicating
| that it's some apple-related bug, which I find kind of hard to
| believe. Is this something that also happens in your app?
| awaseem wrote:
| I haven't noticed this on my personal use. It does seem like
| they use the family picker activity built into iOS. So maybe
| the issue is here as well.
| ajoseps wrote:
| It doesn't happen to every search. For me personally, if I
| try to search for apps starting with "r", it tends to crash.
| Not sure if it's related to the number of applications it
| needs to search for that match the prefix (for this case I
| was trying to block reddit).
| awaseem wrote:
| Maybe its the list of app you have on your device? For me
| its fine but changes as the list is to long? Just a random
| guess though
| jwineinger wrote:
| I have occasionally wanted to trigger location-specific behavior
| on my kid's devices, like turning the wifi off when in their
| bedroom. This feels broadly in the category to me.
| vednig wrote:
| This is awesome, now I can switch between work and home with just
| a tap.
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah exactly! I use this everyday for work and gym.
| realityloop wrote:
| App not available in my country (Australia)
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah sorry about that, I messed up the listing and I'll work to
| get it out to more countries
| whatsthatabout wrote:
| Cool idea, wanted to try it out but it's not available in my
| country. Any reason for this? :)
| awaseem wrote:
| No reason, just messed up the listing haha. I've had a few
| people reach out and I'm going to open it this weekend!
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Very cool; wondering if this could work as a parental control.
| "screen time" on iOS is fundamentally broken, and something like
| this would require the child to come to the parent for screen
| time extensions (if the parent has the NFC chip).
| puttycat wrote:
| How is that different from the parent holding the code?
| linkregister wrote:
| Apple Screen Time will occasionally stop blocking
| applications, allowing the child account to use them without
| restrictions.
|
| Other drawbacks include only a single period of "down time"
| per day. There is also an inability to totally block
| applications; the closest analogue is to set a maximum of one
| minute for the website or application.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| not just occasionally but often, in our experience with
| multiple phones and iPads. I have 2 kids with devices and
| have found Screen Time completely useless. It is the right
| idea in theory but in practice it's broken (I'm guessing no
| Apple higher ups have young kids that they've tried to use
| this with.)
|
| Also, besides the resets (and by reset I mean not just time
| restrictions but content restrictions too), my kid can just
| bypass it by entering his AppleID password.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| We talked about something like this for parents on HN not long
| ago. Definitely monetizable.
| arjvik wrote:
| This is really cool! I know developing apple apps is expensive,
| how can I donate?
| awaseem wrote:
| Thats so kind! No need to donate, just use the app and give me
| any feedback. I love developing things like this!
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| would it be possible to trigger profiles with Bluetooth Beacons?
| awaseem wrote:
| Woah never heard of these? Gonna check them out...
| brianmaurer wrote:
| Very cool! I was about to pay $50 to do this with Brick. What's
| the best way to support the project?
| brianmaurer wrote:
| Saw there's a "Support Us" option in the app for $2. Will do
| that!
| awaseem wrote:
| That is so kind! Feel free to share it around. Appreciate the
| support!
| brianmaurer wrote:
| Ofc. Not sure if this was inspired by the thread on non-
| distracting products, but you could try plugging over there
| too [0]. Hope you're enjoying the HackerNews high today
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780953
| atVelocet wrote:
| So this is just a wrapper for Automations and Profiles (or how
| Apple calls it: Focus).
|
| But i like the idea to make such features accessible to the
| everyone and not only people who geek out on their phone.
|
| As others pointed out you should implement qr codes which would
| make it even more usable.
| awaseem wrote:
| Yeah absolutely, I went with the profiles logic switch so I can
| add other forms of activations for blocking and unblocking,
| like QR codes, timers, etc...
| Dansvidania wrote:
| Is it not available in the EU?
| awaseem wrote:
| Not yet, but working on it to get it out! Appreciate the
| feedback
| dmje wrote:
| Yes please, have you got an alert email / feed for this?
| cmauniada wrote:
| Calgary??
|
| Love to see it! Great product!
| awaseem wrote:
| COW TOWN
| s_k_ wrote:
| cool, but can't use it : ( since it's not available in every
| country
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-21 23:00 UTC)