[HN Gopher] Show HN: Smart Silence - Remind your iPhone to stay ...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Smart Silence - Remind your iPhone to stay quiet in quiet
places
Hi HN, I built an iPhone app called *Smart Silence* after sitting
in a quiet setting (a service, actually) where someone's phone rang
loudly and interrupted everything. It wasn't intentional -- just
one of those forgetful moments. I started wondering: what if our
phones could gently remind us to stay silent when it matters?
*Smart Silence* helps iPhone users do just that. It lets you: -
Mark places where silence is expected (like libraries, meetings,
classes, or houses of worship) - Get a reminder when you enter,
with an easy Shortcut to enable Do Not Disturb - Schedule quiet
times (e.g. "Mondays 9-11am at this place") - Share Silent Places
with others -- so your community, school, or workspace can use the
same setup - Stay fully in control -- no auto-silencing, and no
location tracking outside of defined zones It's currently
available via TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/47CJ31VK I'd love feedback --
especially around usability, edge cases, or features you'd expect.
If you run or attend a place where silence matters, I'd love to
hear your thoughts.
Author : ebagsnave
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-05-28 13:51 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (testflight.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (testflight.apple.com)
| russelldjimmy wrote:
| I apologise if I'm missing something, but isn't this already
| achievable with a location-based Shortcut?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Yes, it is. There are so many tutorials but here is one simple
| and straight to the point.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKzGThOFy1E
| xprn wrote:
| The app that could've been a blog post
| wingerlang wrote:
| Yes, and Dropbox could have been a handful of unix commands.
|
| I don't think I would use an app for this, but as far as I
| can tell, it aims to crowdsource silent locations, something
| a shortcut couldn't realistically achieve.
| ianburrell wrote:
| How do you mark and share locations with a shortcut? Setting up
| shortcut for one location is one thing, managing a bunch of
| locations is another thing.
| happyopossum wrote:
| You don't even need a shortcut - iOS's native focus modes can
| be triggered by location directly. It's one of the
| configuration options that's been there since they launched
| focus modes.
| nytesky wrote:
| I don't know why Apple and Google haven't published a geofencing
| protocol where locations can publish DND or limit internet access
| at these locations.
|
| Basically the phone communicates with the venues via an AirTag
| like network and enters DND or becomes a school mode device.
|
| It can be on by default, and some users like on call doctors or
| firefighter etc can override and take responsibility for managing
| themselves.
|
| I would love my phone to know I'm in Church for a wedding or at a
| play and not have to remember to switch.
| mike_d wrote:
| Because we can't trust people to not be shitheads.
| bigiain wrote:
| > I would love my phone to know I'm in Church for a wedding or
| at a play and not have to remember to switch.
|
| I kinda have the opposite problem. I turn my phone to silent
| because I'm at a restaurant or cinema or whatever, then 3 or 4
| weeks later discover I never remembered to turn it back.
|
| And I'm 100% OK with that, I've gotten good enough at turning
| the ringer on when I'm expecting a call, and not worrying about
| "missing calls" from people who aren't in my VIP list or who
| don't leave voicemail.
| staindk wrote:
| I have 2 rules set on my Pixel -
|
| First one sets my phone to silent when I arrive at work (500m
| radius I think). It also sets it back to loud (or whatever
| the previous state was) automatically when I leave that
| radius.
|
| Second one sets my phone to loud when my phone connects to my
| home WiFi. This helps with the problem you describe - but
| agreed, phone stuck on silent isn't generally an issue (until
| I miss some courier's phone call and kick myself).
| copperx wrote:
| Where do you set these rules?
| staindk wrote:
| Pixel phone settings -> system -> rules
|
| It may be Pixel-exclusive, though I used to use the
| Google Assistant rules on my old phone and they mostly
| worked IIRC.
| layer8 wrote:
| On iOS one could use an automation to automatically turn off
| silent mode every morning or so.
| 47282847 wrote:
| Without assistance from the location, one could build this
| based on location and openstreetmap data, for types of
| buildings.
| neepi wrote:
| Is this a regional thing? I don't really hear phones ringing in
| the UK any more. They're almost always on silent by default.
| nico wrote:
| Personally, my issue is alarms rather than ringing. Silent mode
| doesn't silence the alarms, and I forget to check them. It would
| be great if this would silence alarms
| sitkack wrote:
| I have no idea why the damn phone doesn't have a global silence
| slider. No Noise!
| ksenzee wrote:
| Yep. I had an alarm go off during a funeral last year, when my
| phone was on silent. There really needs to be an "I'm at a
| funeral, dammit" mode.
| anArbitraryOne wrote:
| Maybe you could do what banks do and use silent alarms?
| nico wrote:
| I've tried it, and then I miss the alarms
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| iOS doesn't support batch deleting alarms either. 'Siri set an
| alarm for 45 minutes' leaves my alarm list littered with an
| inactive alarm I once set, have no future use for, but is
| annoying enough that I'll never delete them all. Is there an
| alarm set to go off in the near future? Hold on, let me scroll
| through 50 pages of pointless noise.
|
| iOS. It just works (tm).
| umbra07 wrote:
| Can Siri batch delete alarms based on the name?
|
| "hey Siri, create an alarm and name it $X"
|
| "hey Siri, delete all alarms named $X"
| layer8 wrote:
| This actually works, except that upon "delete all $x
| alarms", Siri asks back "do you want to delete _all_ your
| alarms?", but after confirming only deletes the $x alarms.
|
| Still, it's not very practical, as Siri often mishears
| alarm names, and also you want to use different names to
| know what each alarm is for.
| chgs wrote:
| Siri: delete all my alarms
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Thanks, I wasn't aware siri could delete alarms - this
| requires iirc a swipe and a tap for each alarm from the
| manual UI, that's still not great for the non-voice user
| (alarms is the only thing I use Siri for)
| layer8 wrote:
| It's possible using a Shortcut: https://www.reddit.com/r/
| shortcuts/comments/a2h6bf/comment/k...
| layer8 wrote:
| It doesn't silence alarms because then people would sleep
| through it and be late for work. Probably there should be
| "silencable" and "non-silencable" alarms, though I'm sure
| people would mix them up and use the wrong one.
|
| We really need AGI to solve that. ;)
| matricaria wrote:
| This is build into iOS DND already. It can automatically activate
| based on location.
| kurtis_reed wrote:
| > your iPhone
|
| This presupposes I have an iPhone. I don't.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Did you click on the comments section of a post just to nitpick
| at the title which clearly describes the purpose and OS
| limitations of another users' pet project?
| anArbitraryOne wrote:
| I'd rather use a pencil and paper than be stuck using one of
| apple's operating systems
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| Hot take.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-31 23:02 UTC)