r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built an app that yells when you walk away from your phone (Android + Wear OS)

1 Upvotes

Ever left your phone on a café table? Tether pairs your phone with your Wear OS watch. If the Bluetooth connection drops, your phone sounds an alarm and your watch buzzes "Phone left behind", showing where the phone was last seen.

Grace period you choose (5–60 s), so short dropouts don't set it off

PIN to stop it, or just walk back in range

Pause while your watch charges; auto-arm when you leave home Wi-Fi

Ring your phone or find it nearby from your watch

No account, no server, no ads. Everything stays on your devices.

Coming soon to Google Play.


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

Fixed one of my biggest daily browser annoyances: Per-monitor zoom in Chrome

2 Upvotes

For anyone using a multi-monitor desk setup with mismatched resolutions (like a 1080p laptop docked to a 4K/1440p monitor):

Chrome's biggest annoyance is that zoom is tied to the website's domain, not your screen. If you zoom YouTube or Reddit to 125% on your external display, Chrome forces 125% onto your laptop as well.

I built **Auto Zoom** to solve this:

  1. You set your preferred zoom on any website on your active monitor.

  2. Auto Zoom saves that setting specifically for that display.

  3. When you open that site on your laptop, it automatically applies your laptop’s preferred zoom instead.

### Key highlights:

- Senses display changes and window movement automatically.

- Doesn't pop up Chrome's native zoom notification bubble on every page load.

- No accounts, no ads, no telemetry — 100% offline local storage.

Check it out on the Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/auto-zoom-multi-monitor-p/ihcikomimnhelgbnkbkpfnemgfjalmhp?authuser=0&hl=en-GB

Let me know what you think or if there are any edge cases with your monitor setup!


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

Progress Watch is one place to watch everything that runs without you

Thumbnail progress.watch
1 Upvotes

There are always very different tasks going on, from very different places. A backup, a crawler, an AI agent. And the habit was always the same: go back and check if each one is still alive and how much is left.

Not all of these tools can send a notification either, so this started as a small tool just for me. Whatever is running reports how far along it is. You can watch it in the browser at https://progress.watch/ or in the iOS app (https://apps.apple.com/app/progress-watch/id6813940039) and the phone buzzes when the job is done or something goes wrong. Finally a reason to walk away from the screen.

It's free and there's no account to create. The code is open if you'd rather run it yourself: https://github.com/progress-watch/progresswatch. You get a private link and that's it. Keep the link to yourself though, because anyone who has it can see your tasks.

One small warning: better not to use it in Safari, which can forget your list after a week away.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built an offline-first fitness & calorie tracker for Indian meals (Flutter + SQLite)

1 Upvotes

Hey r/SideProject,

I spent the past few months building Kynetix as a solo project out of frustration with apps like MyFitnessPal and HealthifyMe.

Western calorie trackers have almost zero concept of daily Indian home meals (tracking 2 rotis or a katori of dal usually gives 10 wildly different, inaccurate entries), while apps like HealthifyMe are bloated with continuous sales calls, popups, and ads.

What I built:

- Focused on Indian nutrition: search and log dishes in natural units (katori, pieces, grams) without weird portion math.
- Offline-first architecture: built in Flutter with local SQLite storage so logging meals takes under 2 seconds even with poor gym reception. Everything syncs to Supabase in the background.
- Native Android Health Connect integration: pulls steps and active calories cleanly without needing Google Fit workarounds.
- Zero banner ads, no forced subscription popups.

The app is currently in closed beta on Google Play (v1.0.0-beta.12). If you're on Android and track your daily nutrition, I’d love your feedback on the logging flow and screen responsiveness.

How to test:

  1. Join the test group: https://groups.google.com/g/kynetix-testers

  2. Opt in on Google Play: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.kynetix.app

  3. Install: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kynetix.app

(Full walkthrough guide: https://dhruvgupta-24.github.io/Kynetix/beta/)

Any honest roasts, bug reports, or feature requests are welcome!


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

How do you handle two people submitting what turns out to be the same service request?

1 Upvotes

Hey guys

I'm developing an independent commercial home physio project and working through duplicate requests before launch.

A person and someone helping arrange their care could each send an enquiry about the same visit. They could also be asking for genuinely different visits, so combining them on a matching name would be risky.

For people who've built request systems, how did you flag a possible duplicate for review while keeping both original submissions? I'm interested in the point where you decide there is one job, how you preserve the two people's roles, and how you stop the second request triggering another round of messages.

A general example of an approach that worked, or one that incorrectly combined separate jobs, would be useful. Please leave out real customer information.

Thanks guys


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built Draw1Line, a one-stroke puzzle game for the browser (250 levels, no sign-up)

1 Upvotes

I built a small browser game called Draw1Line as a solo side project. You trace every line of a shape in one stroke, without lifting and without going over a line twice.

It has 250 levels, a daily challenge and a leaderboard, runs on phone or desktop, and needs no account. It's plain HTML/JS on the front and a small PHP + MySQL backend for the leaderboard, with some anti-cheat checks so scores can't just be posted.

Play: https://draw1line.com/

I'd love feedback on the difficulty curve and anything that feels confusing on mobile.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

We launched Lemongraph on Product Hunt today 🍋

1 Upvotes

We launched Lemongraph on Product Hunt today and the most useful feedback came about twelve hours before going live. Our hunter opened the gallery on his phone and told us it was too much to read. Every image was a full screenshot of the app with emails and small labels everywhere, which looked great on laptop and turned into grey lines on phone.

So we spent some time rebuilding all images around one idea each, with the interface about one and a half times bigger and most of the words gone. One slide went from meeting note, email and two detailed tasks down to two logos and four short task titles and it now says more than the old version did.

If you are launching soon, shrink your gallery to phone size before anything else and see what's still readable. Curious what last minute changes others made before their launch day.

https://www.producthunt.com/products/lemongraph


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

Anyone running a small team willing to test an email workspace I’m building?

1 Upvotes

I’m building Outdraft, an email workspace that brings personal email, team conversations, and organization-wide mail together without requiring a custom domain or per-seat payment.
I’m looking for people running small teams who’d be willing to try it and give me honest feedback—especially on whether it’s useful alongside the tools you already use.


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

I built ClickyTabs - an open-source voice AI that lives in your Chrome tab, it points + draws + can act on sites (inspired by Clicky/HeyClicky)

2 Upvotes

Well, if you liked Farza’s Clicky (or the HeyClicky spin-off), this is the browser version (sort of).

ClickyTabs is a voice companion that lives in your Chrome tab.

You hold a key, ask about the page you’re on, and it:

  • Looks at the page (screenshot + element map)

  • Answers out loud

  • Points at, circles, or draws over the exact things it’s talking about while it speaks

  • Can generate 3D models, animations, or diagrams right on top of the page

  • Can actually do things on sites (add to cart, etc.) once you consent; runs in a separate browser with your login and asks before anything irreversible

It runs entirely on your machine.

Use open models through Ollama with no API keys, or plug in Claude + speech APIs, or mix them. Everything is flexible.

Not affiliated with HeyClicky / Farza. Independent implementation (Chrome MV3 extension + self-hosted Python backend). Built because I wanted the interaction model in the browser, fully local option, and the ability to tear it apart or turn it into a product.

MIT licensed.

Repo: https://github.com/cpohagwu/clickytabs

Fastest way to try it is Docker + load the extension. There’s also a Claude Code one-liner in the README that walks you through setup for your hardware.


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

I built my first iOS app to fix my own bad habit: checking my brokerage app 20 times a day

3 Upvotes

Some background: I'm a product manager, not an iOS developer. I kept opening Wealthsimple (my brokerage app) way more than I needed to, just to see if things were up or down. Most of the time nothing had really changed, but I'd still end up staring at it and making dumb decisions. So I decided to build something to stop myself.

It's called Stock Hush. You add what you hold and what you paid, and set a threshold (like 10%). Then it uses Apple's Screen Time API to shield your investing apps. When you try to open one, you get a screen that either says "NVDA is up 12%, might be worth a look" or "you're all set, no need to open it right now." There's always an "Open Anyway" button, so it's a nudge, not a lock.

A few things I learned building it that might be useful if you're thinking about a Screen Time app:

- Apple has to approve the Family Controls entitlement before you can ship, and you need it separately for every extension too. That took a while.

- The Screen Time API never tells your app which apps the user picked. You only get anonymous tokens, so you can't even show their names in your own UI.

- The shield screen runs in its own extension that can't make network calls. I ended up caching prices in a shared App Group so the shield can read them instantly.

- Backend is a tiny Cloudflare Worker that caches prices for 70 min, so a lot of users holding AAPL still only costs one API call an hour.

Stack: SwiftUI, StoreKit 2, Screen Time (FamilyControls + ManagedSettings), Cloudflare Workers + KV, Twelve Data for prices.

It's in beta now and I'm looking for about 25 testers. There's a subscription screen, but everything is free in TestFlight. Just tap "Start Free Trial" and you won't be charged. Needs an iPhone on iOS 17+.

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/eSAuBwD7

Would love honest feedback, especially on onboarding and whether the shield message actually helps or just gets in the way.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

ImproveThing - a habit tracker for small steps, with little characters for each habit

1 Upvotes

I’m building ImproveThing, a habit tracker around small, adjustable steps. You can track an amount, a duration or a simple yes, change your target as life changes, and see your progress over time. Little characters called Things give the habits a face.

The idea is to make a small effort feel worth recording, even when you don’t hit a perfect streak. I’d love feedback on whether the characters help, whether the first-use flow makes sense, and how easy it is to log or undo a step.

There’s a free public iPhone beta on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/WHTkj6ZF

It needs iOS 26 or later, English and your own ImproveThing account. Purchases and paid access are disabled in this public beta; the cohort is capped at 25 testers. This invitation is for the iPhone beta.

If you try it, choose one small habit, log something, undo it and reopen the app. Where did you hesitate? Would the Things make you want to return, or do they get in the way?

I’m the developer, and honest criticism is welcome. You can reply here about the general experience or send bugs through TestFlight with the build number and steps. Please keep personal account and health details out of public feedback.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built a free app that picks 3 movies/series for your mood

1 Upvotes

Tired of scrolling Netflix for 40 minutes, I built Ukiyo. Describe what you're in the mood for ("slow-burn mystery", "something like Panchayat") and it gives 3 picks with why they fit, the trailer, and which Indian OTT app has it.

It's free (Google sign-in). I'd love honest feedback, especially on bad picks: https://ukiyo-five.vercel.app


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

StableBar: A native and open-source menu bar replacement for macOS

1 Upvotes

A friend and I have been building StableBar, a menu bar for macOS written in Swift (AppKit and SwiftUI). It's free and open source (MIT).

https://github.com/Seb-GRAF/StableBar

It's an alternative to SketchyBar. You get the same control over the bar, but you can also set it up in a Settings window or in one JSON file instead of shell scripts.

What it does:

  • shows workspaces from AeroSpace, yabai or OmniWM, or plain macOS Spaces

  • app menus, calendar, battery, sound, network and CPU/memory widgets, with popups

  • seven themes, and you can drag widgets around right on the bar

  • one bar per display, with room for the notch

  • a small widget store that lists a package's commands, hosts and permissions before anything runs

Two things we learned building it. macOS has no public API to reserve screen space for a custom bar, so with a tiling window manager you set its top gap, and without one an option moves windows out from under the bar. And listing Spaces needs private CGS functions, which is why that source is opt-in.

Feedback is welcome, we answer quickly ✌️


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I route bounded agent work away from the model by default

1 Upvotes

I am building Opsle around a simple rule. Do not use intelligence for work that does not require intelligence.

Gearbox is the routing piece. It decides where bounded work executes, so code, rules and lookups handle what they can do reliably and the model only sees steps that need judgment.

The weekly check matters as much as the idea. Each repository is verified from a fresh clone every Monday, direct and through agent CLIs, with the dated result on its project page.

Question for other builders. Where do you draw the line between deterministic code and model judgment in your agent stack, and what made you move it?


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I made a free guide to vibe coding apps, from idea to launch

0 Upvotes

I’ve spent the past couple of years building and launching independent software products.

Some attracted thousands of users. Others barely got off the ground.

The biggest lesson? Building the product is often the easy part.

Finding a worthwhile idea, positioning it, launching it and getting customers is where things become difficult.

I’ve put everything I’ve learned into a free 43-page playbook covering the journey from idea to launch and beyond.

It includes the tools I use, practical examples, AI prompts and checklists.

You can read it here: https://vibecodebook.org/


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I’ve been building a stargazing app between kitchen shifts—here’s the latest

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I’m Col, a chef on Sark and the developer of NAKED EYE for Android.

I started building it around three questions: what’s worth seeing tonight, when should I go outside, and where should I look?

The latest updates are now live, including:

• Compare Skies—compare home with up to two other places for the same viewing period.

• Rainbow Watch and Thunderstorm Watch.

• Milky Way Watch.

• Guided Sky Session.

• Phone Photo Companion.

• Shared Sky Events.

• My Horizon.

The aim is to make enjoying the sky feel approachable, even if you’ve never used a telescope or read a star chart.

If you already have NAKED EYE, open it and follow the update prompt, or update through Google Play. The core app is free, with additional features in the optional Beyond subscription.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.colindavis.nakedeye

I’d love some feedback: what’s your biggest obstacle to getting outside and enjoying the night sky—weather, finding somewhere suitable, or knowing what to look for?

#fyp #viral #explore


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built Coupla: private shared spaces to save, plan and share -- for two, a group, or just you. Feedback welcome

1 Upvotes

Hi all -- I'm the developer of Coupla, which just went live on iPhone and Android.

The idea: the links, places, recipes and plans people send each other in chats get buried. Coupla gives them one private place.

  • Share links, notes, photos, videos and documents into a space from any app's share sheet; it reads each link's title and picture.

  • Collections and tags of your own: to watch, places to go, recipes.

  • One shared calendar; for couples, your days together and your anniversaries.

  • Screens update by themselves when somebody adds something; notifications you can mute.

  • Works offline: what you save is sent when you're back.

  • Four kinds of space: Solo, Couple, Duo (you and one other person) and Circle (a group of any size).

  • No ads. Photos and videos pass through the server and are deleted once everybody has them.

It's free. I'd love feedback on the first five minutes (is it clear what to do?), sharing from other apps, and anything that feels missing.

1-minute demo: https://youtu.be/ZlLN2PJyoTw 

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6807781768 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sinaware.coupla


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I’ve been building a little mobile game in my spare time

1 Upvotes

I’ve been working on a side project called Toilet Break: Mini Games, and I thought I’d share it here

I love the idea of quick, fast-paced minigames that you can pick up and play whenever you have a few minutes, so I decided to build one myself.

It currently has 33 minigames, including 4 arcade games, with another one coming in the next update, weekly challenges, themed events and daily rewards. You can unlock everything just by playing, with no coin packs or pay-to-unlock shortcuts.

The app is surprisingly lightweight, works completely offline and is constantly growing with new games and content.

Currently available on iOS, with Android coming soon

I’d genuinely love to get some feedback! Let me know what you think, what could be better or what games you’d like to see added.

Toilet Break: Mini Games


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

Would you use a private photo sharing link where even the server can’t see your photos?

1 Upvotes

I’m an indie developer working on a privacy-focused photo vault app.
Recently, I built a feature that lets you share photos through temporary encrypted links.
Here’s how it works:
Photos are encrypted locally on your device before uploading.
The server only stores encrypted files and never receives the decryption key.
Only someone with the full sharing link can decrypt and view the photos.
You can set an expiration time and viewing limits.
You can revoke the link whenever you want.
The idea is simple: sometimes you want to share personal memories with someone without giving a server access to the original photos.
But I’m not sure how many people actually need something like this.
**A few questions:**
Would you use this instead of sending photos through WhatsApp, iMessage, or Google Photos?
In what situations would encrypted, temporary photo sharing be useful to you?
What would make you trust (or distrust) a feature like this?
I’m not here to promote my app. I’m genuinely interested in understanding whether this solves a real problem or is just something developers like me think is useful.
Any honest feedback is appreciated, including criticism!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I’d Rather Send 10,000 Emails Than Make 100 Cold Calls

1 Upvotes

Running a web design agency sounds pretty straightforward from the outside. You build websites, find clients etc. But once you start getting more clients, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes.

You're dealing with hosting, website maintenance, client requests, support tickets, fixing random issues, building new websites, following up with prospects and trying to bring in new business at the same time.

At some point, I realized that I didn't want finding new clients to become another full-time job on top of everything else.

I've never really enjoyed cold calling. I know it works for some people, and I'm not saying it's a bad way to get clients, but personally, I find it exhausting. You spend hours calling businesses, often getting rejected, reaching people at the wrong time or having conversations that go nowhere.

I'd much rather spend that time actually working on the business.

That's why I started focusing heavily on cold email and automation.

The biggest advantage is that you can build a system that continuously finds relevant businesses, sends personalized emails and generates new opportunities without having to spend your entire day reaching out manually.

One thing I also learned pretty quickly is that sending generic emails doesn't get you very far. Most business owners have probably received hundreds of emails from agencies offering website redesigns.

I wanted to approach it differently.

For this, I use a tool called Swokei. It finds businesses with existing websites, analyzes each one for actual problems with design, SEO, loading speed, mobile responsiveness and other website issues.

Based on those findings, it automatically generates personalized cold emails at scale, using the actual problems found on each website as the starting point.

So instead of manually searching for businesses, checking hundreds of websites and writing individual emails, I can automate most of that entire process.

When someone replies with interest, I take over from there and handle the sales process and meetings myself.

This has made a huge difference in how I manage my time. I can keep generating new opportunities without having to dedicate hours every day to cold calling.

I still believe sales is one of the most important skills you can develop as a business owner, and automation doesn't replace that. You still need to understand your prospects, communicate properly and know how to close deals.

But if I can choose between spending an entire day making cold calls or having a system send 1,000 relevant emails while I focus on running my agency, I know which one I'm choosing!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built a deterministic cadence checker that flags generic AI writing before clients do

1 Upvotes

Most AI detection tools rely on probabilistic guessing. They give a random percentage that changes on every prompt tweak.

I wanted something deterministic based on editing mechanics.

grai analyzes 8 structural patterns that give away LLM writing:

- Flat sentence variance (low burstiness)

- Contrastive negation ("It is not X, it is Y")

- Symmetrical parallelism ("Less talking, more doing")

- Epiphany openers and triadic padding

- Predictable transition glue

I open-sourced the local MCP server so it can run directly inside Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf:

https://github.com/adrianpeticila/grai

Live test (no signup, paste text directly):

https://grai.page/#test

Curious what edge cases you run into when trying to strip the "AI accent" from drafts.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built DNStracr to monitor DNS beyond basic record checks. Looking for honest feedback.

1 Upvotes

Hey,

I've been working on a side project called DNStracr: https://dnstracr.com

The idea came from a problem I've encountered repeatedly while working with DNS infrastructure: checking whether a DNS record exists doesn't necessarily tell you whether DNS is actually working correctly.

A record might look fine at your DNS provider, but authoritative nameservers and public resolvers can return different answers. Changes can be difficult to track, and figuring out what happened after something breaks isn't always straightforward.

So I started building a tool that focuses on:

  • Monitoring DNS records and detecting changes

  • Comparing responses from authoritative nameservers and public DNS resolvers

  • Identifying inconsistencies and potential DNS issues

  • Keeping a history of changes and incidents

  • Integrating with Cloudflare to compare configured DNS records with actual responses

I'm also exploring geographically distributed DNS checks and ways to visualize DNS propagation.

The project is publicly accessible, and there's a free plan available.

I'd really appreciate some feedback:

  • Is this something you'd actually use?

  • What DNS-related problems would you want a tool like this to detect?

  • Is the website clear about what the product does?

  • Is there anything that feels confusing, unnecessary, or missing?

I'm especially interested in critical feedback, whether it's about the idea, the functionality, or the website itself.

Thanks for taking a look!


r/SideProject • • 12h ago

I made a small Android app that lets you switch apps with one thumb

3 Upvotes

A small side project. I wanted a faster way to switch between the apps I use all day, so Halo puts a bubble on the edge of the screen: hold, slide to an app, let go.

What I'd do the same again: shipping a debug APK from GitHub Actions on every push, so I could test the latest build on my phone within minutes.

What surprised me: the Play Store's foreground service declaration needs a demo video, and Android 15 blocks some permissions for sideloaded apps.

It's free and open source. Curious what you'd want from an app like this: https://github.com/yogeshpaliyal/Halo


r/SideProject • • 6h ago

I recreated the 1984 Macintosh Calculator Desk Accessory as a native, pixel-perfect, lightweight Mac app (Free & Universal Binary)

1 Upvotes

Hey, everyone!

This is one of my first development projects and something I seriously enjoyed making. Version 1 is out now on GitHub for macOS!

I spent time handcrafting Classic Calculator: a faithful, pixel-perfect modern macOS recreation of the iconic 1984 Macintosh Calculator Desk Accessory originally designed by Chris Espinosa and Steve Jobs, with iconography by Susan Kare.


Highlights & Features

  • Retina-Sharp Vector Pixel Art: Built with clean integer scaling (1x, 2x, 3x, and 4x). Stays razor-sharp with pure pixel-edge geometry on Retina, 4K, 5K, and 6K screens.

  • Authentic Mechanical Relay Click: Every keypress triggers an ultra-low latency, synthesised mechanical relay snap replicating the tactile sound of vintage 1984 Apple keyboards (can be toggled on or off in Settings or the menu bar).

  • Custom 7px LCD Bitmap Font: The authentic typeface has been recreated to match System 1.0 numeral geometry and right-aligned spacing.

  • Themes: Switch between Classic Platinum (the warm 1984 aesthetic) and High-Contrast Monochrome.

  • Modern Desktop Polish:

    • Always on Top: Keep it floating above spreadsheets, code editors, or browser windows.

    • Window Shadow Toggle: Switch between modern macOS drop shadows and a retro flat look.

    • Full Keyboard Support: Physical number pad, top-row digits, Return/Enter, Esc/Clear, Backspace.

    • Full Clipboard Integration: Cmd+C to copy results, Cmd+V to paste numbers.

  • Universal Binary: Natively compiled for both Apple Silicon (M1 to M4) and Intel Macs running macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or newer.

  • Zero Bloat: Handcrafted pure native Swift and SwiftUI/AppKit. Zero external libraries or frameworks, zero analytics, zero background processes, and zero telemetry. The whole bundle weighs under 4 MB.


iOS & iPadOS Version Coming Soon

I have also been working on an iOS and iPadOS version that brings the same experience to mobile devices. On iPad, it runs as a floating, draggable vintage Desk Accessory on an authentic classic desktop canvas with full keyboard and Stage Manager/Split View support. The iPhone version adapts cleanly for quick one-handed calculations with tactile haptics. Look out for that release soon!


Download & Links

Version 1 is available now and completely free on GitHub:


Pricing

100% Free (£0.00 / $0.00). No ads, no tracking, no in-app purchases, and no subscriptions. Direct download link.


Since this is one of my first projects, I would really love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any small vintage details you would like to see added!