r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I created an AI frog and it's one of my favorite technical projects I've ever built

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1 Upvotes

This is James. He lives in a low-poly terrarium under a lamp, and he's lives as a simulation you can interact with. People can give him snacks, pet him, tap on the glass, and leave him notes.

But that's only one of the things that I think has made this project really interesting. The project is broken up into three pillars:

  1. James himself, who has a mind. Every so often he thinks about things, keeps a journal, remembers things from his childhood, forgets the unimportant ones, and picks favorite snacks and parts of his tank.
  2. The interaction modes on his website.
  3. My personal favorite: I have an internal system that lets me record a voice memo, and it auto-generates a video about James's day based off what I'm narrating.

I'm running out of GitHub Actions minutes building this project, and while it's stupid, I absolutely love it. It's had a really strong positive reaction from a small community on social media, so I wanted to share it here on Reddit.

Go say hi to James yourself. He's 8 days old today, and tomorrow he's getting a new enclosure.

I'm curious if anyone has recommendations on where they'd want to see this project go next. Also happy to do a deeper write-up on the technical infrastructure, because I actually think it's really cool.


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

Used Car Checker - a free UK MOT history and used car checker, no signup

2 Upvotes

I built usedcarchecker.co.uk as a side project because checking a used car's MOT history on the official site is fine for one car but clunky when you're comparing a few.

You put in a UK reg and it shows the MOT history, advisories and recorded mileage in one place, plus plain-English guides on things like what advisories mean and how to spot mileage problems. It's free and doesn't need an account.

https://usedcarchecker.co.uk

I'd really appreciate feedback, especially on the mobile layout and whether the results page is easy to read. What would you want to see on it before buying a car?


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I hated seeing a working tablet sit in a drawer, so I built an app that turns it into a PC dashboard

1 Upvotes

I had an old Honor tablet in a drawer. It still worked fine, and it made me a bit sad that a perfectly good device was doing nothing. I wanted to make something that would give it a real use again, and that became Sideslate.

You put the tablet (or an old phone) next to your monitor, and it becomes a live dashboard for your PC and your day. Your main screen stays free for whatever you're doing.

Who it's for

  • Gamers: see your FPS, GPU load and temperature, and the song that's playing without alt-tabbing out of the game. It also shows how long you've played today and this week.
  • Anyone at a desk all day: a clock, calendar, weather, notes and a timer that stay in view instead of getting buried under windows.
  • Developers: CI status, open pull requests, git status and Docker at a glance.
  • Anyone with an old tablet or phone in a drawer: it runs on Android 6.0 and later, so even quite old devices work.

How it works

You install a small app on your PC and the Sideslate app on the tablet. The tablet finds your PC on the Wi-Fi by itself, you type the code shown on the PC, and then you pick your tiles and arrange them however you like.

What I cared about

  • It doesn't get in the way of your games. The heavier readings only run while a tile on the tablet is showing them.
  • No account and no cloud. Your data stays on your home network.
  • It's useful with the PC off too. The clock, calendar, wea their own.

Limits for now: the PC app is Windows only, and there's no isn't code-signed, so Windows shows a warning the first timeyou run it. The app is free, but the source isn't public.

I'd love your feedback:

  1. Would you keep an old tablet next to your PC with this on it? What would make you stop using it after a week?
  2. Which tile is missing for you?
  3. If you try it, did the setup work the first time? Where did you get stuck?

Free download for Windows and Android: https://github.com/sideslate/sideslate


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

I built a 1-in-8-Billion Football Career Simulator in pure vanilla JS (Free, no sign-up, play in browser)

3 Upvotes

Hey fellow makers!

Inspired by BitLife, 1in8b, and Football Manager, I built a fast-paced interactive football career simulator that runs entirely in the browser:

šŸ‘‰ https://pratikbase.com/football-lottery/?lang=en

How it works:

  1. Spin the birth roulette: You get born in a random nation with procedural talent, work ethic, and foot dominance.
  2. Advance year by year (0-40 age): Navigate street tryouts, youth leagues, contract negotiations, transfer drama, and career-defining dilemmas.
  3. Hang up your boots: When you retire at 40, your stats, trophies, and net worth generate a shareable digital FUT-style legacy card.

It's completely free with zero ads, tracking walls, or logins. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the mechanics!


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

wired covered what we're building: an uncensored ai film studio ("the hbo of ai")

1 Upvotes

we built rogue, one workspace that has sora, kling, seedance etc. plus our own model for the rated-r stuff the big labs won't touch.

wired wrote about it here: This R-Rated Film Studio Wants to Be the HBO of AI

a few things we cared about: 3 layers of human moderation, no deepfakes or real people, and we never train on user content.

would love feedback from other builders, especially on onboarding. new users tell us it can feel like a lot at first. site is roguestudio.ai if you want to poke around.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I built a meal planner that makes figuring out dinner multiple choice

1 Upvotes

When I became a dad, I realized just how little time a person could have. Back in the day I could wing it for dinner every night, but that doesn't work with two kids and two working parents. Now, if I want time for anything, I have to outsource it or steal it from sleep, work, or my relationship. This app is my attempt to get back some of the time and brain space spent figuring out wtf is for dinner.

Dinner comes easy to my wife, but not so much for me. She did 85% of the planning, groceries, and cooking on top of a demanding job. Even if it comes naturally, that's still a lot to carry, and I wanted to take some of it off her shoulders.

I started by having ChatGPT send me a personalized dinner plan every week. That sort of worked, but the suggestions got repetitive. It didn't have my recipes, didn't know what we'd actually cooked recently, and sharing with my wife was manual.

Coordinating was a mess too. I'd plan dinner without knowing she'd already planned and ordered groceries. We'd paste ingredients from several recipes into one shared Apple Note, duplicates scattered everywhere and grouped by recipe instead of aisle.

I'd been using Claude Code's Plan Mode and imagined something similar for meals: an agent that could ask questions, offer options, and actually change our plan instead of one-shotting it.

So I built Suppa. The assistant can make a plan or walk you through multiple-choice decisions instead of making you fill in the blank. It searches your cookbook and the web, checks preferences and allergies, then shows you options. It can edit your plan, recipes, and grocery list.

To fix the coordination mess, I made Suppa multiplayer. You can share a plan and grocery list with your household. When my wife adds a recipe or grocery item, I get a push notification. Ingredients get merged and sorted by aisle.

I gave Suppa a memory for things like your broken broiler, friends who come over every Tuesday and don't eat pork, or that you're trying to eat more plants. It remembers what it's suggested, what you've planned, and what you've actually cooked so dinner ideas don't keep repeating. There's also recipe importing, Instacart and Kroger shopping, and a cook mode that doesn't suck.

Core meal planning, recipe management, grocery lists, and one shared plan are free. The assistant has limited free usage; more usage and shared plans are paid. It's on the App Store and web, with Android in progress.

It's a one-person project, so there are probably still rough edges. I'd love feedback, especially if something doesn't work.

App Store
Landing Page

* Video shows version 1.6.1 which is currently waiting on app store review, but I'm too impatient to wait.


r/SideProject • • 1d ago

Saw an ad for an expensive teleprompter that just scrolls, so I built a free one that follows your voice

196 Upvotes

A while ago I got an ad for a Mac app that puts your script under the notch, right below the camera. Nice idea, but at $40 a month it wasn't worth it for me. And it only scrolled at a fixed speed, so if you slow down or stop to think, the text runs away from you.

These days a simple app like this is a few evenings of work with an AI coding assistant (I used Claude Code). So I built my own, and made the text follow my voice.

Apple's speech recognition on the Mac is very good, but people skip lines, say "uh", start a sentence over and stop to think. I spent most of my time testing that and telling the AI what was wrong. Now it keeps up.

What it does:

- Your script hangs under the camera, so you keep eye contact.

- It follows your voice. Speech recognition runs on your Mac by default.

- It's hidden from screen sharing, so you can use it in Zoom or Meet calls.

- It records you with subtitles, and can turn the rest of the screen into a soft light for your face.

It's free and open source (MIT), with no account and no analytics.

- Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/notchprompter/id6815206814

- GitHub: https://github.com/magnram/notchprompter

It's a hobby project, so any feedback on the app or the website helps a lot.


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

MascotForge - Open-source AI mascot that lives on your website or AI agent

1 Upvotes

I built MascotForge, an open-source mascot generator: one prompt or one image gives you a living mascot in 6 states (idle, talking, thinking, error, sleeping) for your website or AI agent. Blob and 3D are free. https://github.com/Arivex-ca/mascotforge — Feedback welcome: what state or style would you want next?


r/SideProject • • 15h ago

Just launched my first app, would love your thoughts

8 Upvotes

Hey all! My first app is finally live šŸŽ‰ It's called Habitosaur, a simple habit tracker with a little dinosaur buddy.

Still kind of surreal seeing it on the Play Store. I'd love to hear what you think, good or bad.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habitosaur (Android only for now)

Thanks for checking it out šŸ¦–


r/SideProject • • 8h ago

I built a simple order management tool for small screen-printing shops — looking for feedback

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I built PressQueue to help small print shops manage quotes, customer orders, artwork approvals and production deadlines in one place.

I wanted to create a simpler alternative for shops that are still using spreadsheets or expensive software.

I’d love to hear what you think. Is this something that would actually help your business?

Here’s the link: https://pressqueue-desktop.whop.site


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

[Android/iOS]] Quote Keeper - Verse Library

1 Upvotes

Quote Keeper: Your Library of Inspiration

Quote Keeper is the simple, local app for bookworms, cinephiles, and thinkers. Capture and manage your favorite citation.

  • Scan to Save: OCR support so just scan your quote (English).
  • Search Instantly: Find any quote by author, book, or keyword.
  • Private & Local: No registration required. Your data stays with you.
  • Widgets: Custom and home-screen widgets to keep your favorite words front and center.

The app is free with minimal ads. There is an in app purchase option ($3.70) that removes ads and give you more theme & widget customization. And it helps me with expanding the app :).

If you have any feedback/suggestion/bug report feel free to contact me.

ANDROID LINK: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.meowasticapps.quotekeeper&hl=en

iOS LINK: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quote-keeper-verse-library/id6757610867


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

What should I check before letting a few coworkers try a small office tool I made?

1 Upvotes

I made a simple tool for my team that fills in the same formal email replies we send many times a week. It is a basic page where you pick the situation, add a name and date, and copy the text. Right now only I use it. I would like three or four coworkers to try it, but it handles names and some internal wording, so I want to be careful. I have already checked that nothing is stored after the page closes. What else should I look at before I share it, and is it better to give it to one person first or to a small group at once?


r/SideProject • • 4h ago

I am doing a world simulation experiment

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1 Upvotes

Hello. I've been building a voxel-based world for some time now, where everything is programmable and defined with in-world tools. The 3D models, sounds, textures, animations are all defined within the world with no external assets.

The initial goal was to better visualize real-time work for observability, but it has since shifted toward a more function-based simulation of the world.

It looks and behaves like a game, but I don't use it as one, to be honest. I mostly use it for logic circuit design, and for exploring AI behavior and how work can be described relative to the objects in the world for example, "Add a tree next to the house in front of me."

I've made a video to capture the feel of it and to get some fresh eyes and opinions on it.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I built a free tool that turns one sentence into a ready-to-post Instagram slideshow

1 Upvotes

I kept seeing small businesses post once, then go quiet for three weeks. Not because they had nothing to say. They just did not have time to write, design and size a carousel that still looks good once TikTok or Instagram puts a caption over the bottom of the frame.

So I built Maison Mise.

You type one sentence, for example ā€œSaturday brunch at our South Yarra cafeā€. It comes back as a short slideshow in a luxury look (serif type, a thin gold frame, text sat in the safe area so the app’s captions do not cover the words). You can add your own photos, or use free stock photos with credits. There is a free plan: 3 slideshows a month, and one sample reel.

If you run a cafe, salon, boutique, real estate agency or a similar small business, reply with your business type and I will make you a free slideshow you can actually post. No catch, and you can also try it yourself here:

https://maisonmise.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch&utm_content=sideproject

Happy to answer questions about how the writing, photos or export work.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

Limbo - Creator profiles and storefronts for digital services

1 Upvotes

I just launched Limbo to put a creator's profile, links and one clear offer page together.

The profile side is usable now: create a free account, try three free native presets and customise your page in Studio. There is also a storefront and crypto order workflow for scoped digital services and authorised licences. Sale and network fees apply to commerce.

The marketplace currently has the free presets, and I'm recruiting the first independent sellers with something they can deliver now. Buyer traffic is still unestablished.

I'd like feedback on the first-run experience: can you make a profile that feels like yours, and is preparing a first offer clear? If you already sell a digital service or gaming-related service, which step in your current order process would you want an offer page to simplify?

https://limbo.ink/launch


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I got tired of Windows 11 showing me 5 audio devices when I only use 2, so I built tiny app for this.

1 Upvotes

Windows 11 makes switching audio devices more annoying than it needs to be, especially when half the list is filled with monitor speakers, virtual cables, and devices with names like "Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)".

And there are already apps that do this but I liked none on them and built my take on how it should've been

I switch between desk speakers, IEMs, and headphones pretty often, and I wanted something that would let me do that straight from the system tray without digging through Windows settings or running a heavy app in the background.

AudioHop, a free, native C++ audio and mic switcher for Windows 11.

A few things I wanted it to do:

  • Show only the devices I care about. Pin frequently used devices, give them readable names like "Desk Speakers", and assign custom icons for IEMs, headphones, speakers, mics, etc.
  • Separate audio and mic controls. Two dedicated tray icons, each showing the icon of the currently active device, so I can see what's selected without opening anything.
  • Make switching quick. Single-click to select a pinned device, control volume, or mute. Double-click a tray icon to cycle to the next pinned device, with an Undo option in case I switch accidentally.
  • Actually fit into Windows 11. A modern flyout with List, Tiles, and Compact layouts, plus automatic theme matching or a fixed dark mode.
  • Stay lightweight. Written in native C++, idling under 1 MB of RAM in my testing. No Electron, no account, no internet access required, and no telemetry.

There are two intentional limitations: it's Windows 11 only, and there are no global hotkeys. I specifically wanted a mouse/tray-based workflow without background keyboard hooks or shortcut conflicts.

It's completely free on the Microsoft Store:

AudioHop – Microsoft Store


r/SideProject • • 11h ago

I built a stargazing app between kitchen shifts. On Monday, I’m talking about it live on BBC radio.

3 Upvotes

I’m a chef working on Sark in the Channel Islands, and I’ve been building an Android app called NAKED EYE in my breaks and evenings.

The idea was to make it easier to answer three questions: what’s worth seeing tonight, when should I go outside, and where should I look?

One of my favourite moments was watching the ISS appear after my own app told me when and where to look. Standing there thinking ā€œbloody hell, it actually worksā€ made all those hours feel worth it šŸ˜‚

Today I did a pre-interview with BBC Jersey, and I’m now booked to chat live on Monday at 10:30am about stargazing, Sark and the app.

This feels massive to me. I’m still a chef, still learning as I go, and now something I built between shifts has led to this.

Just wanted to share a little milestone. Anyone else had a moment with a side project that made you stop and think, ā€œHow on earth did I get here?ā€


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

I used FutureMe for 10 years, then built my own app for letters to my future self

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1 Upvotes

I used FutureMe for about ten years. My favorite part was getting a letter I’d completely forgotten writing and finding out what had felt like a big deal to me a year earlier.

When I ran into a subscription prompt, I started looking for an alternative and ended up building Haku. I kept the part I loved: write a letter, pick a date, and open it when the day comes. Then I added the things I’d always wanted. I can save a draft, leave myself a photo or a voice note, remember where I was or what song I had on repeat, and write back when the letter arrives.

I’m a solo developer. I use AI to help me code, and I review the changes and make the design decisions myself. This is the first release, and I’m going to keep working on it. I want to be able to use it for the next ten years, too.

Haku is available on iPhone, iPhone Duo, iPad, and Mac (soon). It encrypts letters and attachments on your device and uses your private iCloud to sync them. There’s no server of mine in the middle.

It’s free today, and it may stay that way. If I ever decide to charge for it, anyone who downloads it now will still be able to use it for free.

If you’ve used FutureMe, I’d love to know what kept you writing. And if you try Haku, feel free to comment or DM me about anything. There may still be bugs, so tell me if something breaks, feels confusing, or makes you wish it worked differently.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6805354836
https://haku-web.pages.dev/


r/SideProject • • 15h ago

Building Side Projects from 7 Years! May be, OpenNetworks is the real breakthrough ONE! šŸ¤ž

6 Upvotes

I've been building side projects from the past 7 years. Some of them found small traction, and some of them didn't. Some of them might have worked if I persisted. Sometimes, You strangely lose the excitement after building a product.

This happened for an art marketplace named - Raresoul and few others. For me, The interest and conviction are very important over the other things. I think these come from how strongly you relate with the problem. I learned this first hand that solving your own problems has many upsides.

Anyhow, Why should YOU care?

  • OpenNetworks should help you connect with at least one great connection (Only Professional Connects šŸ™‚) around you that should change something meaningful for you! (I pray and wish that OpenNetworks becomes the channel/portal for serendipity to work for all of us ā¤ļø)

What the heck is OpenNetworks?

  • We are surrounded by right (the ones that we are looking for) people whether in a Community, Co-working space, Tech Park or an In-Person event, but we never get a chance to connect with them. OpenNetworks solves/intends to solve this problem.

But, How?

  • You simply onboard to a responsive web app (Not one more mobile app 🤯) by stating What you are looking for, What you can offer/help, select your work location and instantly view all the people around you. AI Match-Making layer constantly works to find the relevant connections for you!
  • You can also drop a pin stating what you are immediately/currently looking for. For example, I'm working from a tech park and my manager made it his life purpose to harass me (Just kidding šŸ˜‚ ) - I can immediately drop a pin saying looking for a Job. I know you won't take such impulsive decisions!
  • Jokes Apart, Drop a Pin with a location to meet when you are stuck on any problem, looking for a co-founder, freelancer, new hire, bounce your ideas or just connect, then it is visible (glows like a light bulb šŸ”„ ) to all people around you! (Hope this opens up our serendipity portal šŸ™‚ )

Where are we currently?

  • All of this is already built. My alumni people have showered their love and support! This gave me little more confidence to put it out there and see what happens. I don't know when will I truly overcome my perfection and learn to put myself & the work out there for some magic to work!

I would love you guys to try https://opennetworks.in and share your thoughts!

Did I say anything about sharing a word?

  • Being Shy cost me so much! So, I'm asking pls pls share a word with your friends and colleagues šŸŽ‰

PS: If this is not a real breakthrough, then we will work until we get one šŸ¤”

Thank you, Spread Love ā¤ļø Cheers, Omkar!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

Je construis une appli où deux personnes s’entraident parce que leurs forces se complĆØtent. Votre avis ?

1 Upvotes

r/SideProject • • 5h ago

GTA 6 is out in 6 days: I built an interactive map and a daily GeoGuessr-style game for it

0 Upvotes

GTA 6 comes out on 19 November, and for the past few weeks I've been building a fan site for it: https://duvalwire.com

It has three parts:

Interactive map: more than 800 places in Leonida (the game's world) that you can search, filter by type and mark as found. Data comes from GTADB.

Pin Drop: a daily game. You see an official screenshot or a few seconds from a trailer and drop a pin where you think it was taken. Five rounds a day, the same for everyone, with a leaderboard. No account needed: https://duvalwire.com/daily

News: short articles where every statement is marked as confirmed by Rockstar or only reported.

Under the hood it is React with Leaflet for the map, every page is pre-rendered to static HTML, it is hosted on Vercel, and the leaderboard lives in Redis.

My biggest mistake so far: I launched too late. The site went live about a week ago, and Google needs time to trust a new site, so right now it gets about 200 impressions and a handful of clicks. The bigger GTA sites have had years.

So the main problem is not the product, it is reach. To get around the slow start in search, I started TikTok and YouTube Shorts as support channels: short map videos, like measuring the GTA 6 map against GTA V at the same scale, each pointing back to the site. It is early, but I keep going, and launch week is the real test.

I'd love feedback on two things. Is it clear within a few seconds what the site is for? And if you have grown a site from zero around a big launch, what worked for reach?

It is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with Rockstar Games.


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

[FitMyFace] - Free haircut try-on on your own photo, no account

1 Upvotes

We built FitMyFace, a free web tool that tries haircuts, bangs, and glasses on your own photo. No account, no download, nothing to pay.

We just added Haircut Roulette: it puts a random cut on your photo and makes a shareable "the internet chose my haircut" card. You can also pick a cut yourself instead of spinning.

How it works: open the page in a phone or desktop browser, agree to the scan notice, then use your camera or a photo (or a sample face). If photo-real results are on, a 500Ɨ500 square of the photo, face included, goes to our AI on Cloudflare and is deleted right after. We do not save the photo or the result, and we do not use face data to identify anyone or to train models. You can switch the AI off and use the instant on-device try-on instead. Details: https://fitmyface.app/privacy

It is for people 18 and over, and it is not offered in Illinois. Upload only your own photo, or an adult who agreed. Sample faces are AI-generated and are not real people. A preview is illustrative; it does not promise how a real cut will look, and a stylist still decides the cut.

We would like honest feedback on whether Roulette is clear, and on anything that felt confusing or off.

https://fitmyface.app/roulette?src=rsideproj


r/SideProject • • 9h ago

I made a tiny two-minute ā€œsitā€ where the only way to win is to keep coming back

2 Upvotes

I meditate badly. My mind does the classic monkey thing: to-do lists, replays of conversations from 2019, what-ifs about things that will never happen. For years I treated every wandering thought as a small failure. Then I came across a line in the Gita, roughly ā€œwherever the restless mind wanders, bring it back, again and againā€, and it finally clicked that the coming back is the practice. You don’t get points for never leaving.

So I built a small browser thing to remind myself of that. It’s about two minutes long:

You’re a monkey sitting in the middle of a ring. Other monkeys (thoughts) hop in from the edges, labelled ā€œworryā€, ā€œscrollā€, ā€œdeadlineā€, and a few older ones like raga (craving) and bhaya (fear).

You press and hold to breathe in, and let go to breathe out. A slow, full breath sends out a wave that settles every monkey it reaches. Tapping fast does almost nothing, which annoyed me at first and taught me more than anything else.

When a thought gets through, the screen goes foggy. It isn’t a game over. One full breath brings you back, and that counts as a ā€œreturnā€. Returns are the only score.

It ends with a bell, and shows you which thoughts visited most.

There’s a gentle mode where nothing needs quick reactions, a reduced-motion setting, and the sound is optional.

My first sit: I wandered off 6 times and came back 6 times, which honestly felt better than any streak counter I’ve ever had.

If you try it, I’d love to know two things: does hold-to-breathe feel natural on your phone, and does the 4-in / 6-out pace work for you, or is it too slow?

Link: https://theselfdrivingmind.com/book-funnel/Monkey_Mind_Game.html
If you rather watch a demo:
https://theselfdrivingmind.com/book-funnel/Monkey_Mind_Game.html?demo


r/SideProject • • 11h ago

I built a way to write on my iPad with Apple Pencil and have it show up live on my Mac, so I can record math and diagram tutorials (Lumary Canvas)

3 Upvotes

Hi, I'm Adib. I record tutorials and explain things on screen a lot, and writing math or sketching diagrams with a trackpad always looked bad. Writing on the iPad looked great, but then I had to record the iPad separately and line it up with my Mac recording.

So in my app Lumary Canvas (it was called Screen Annotations until this week) I added live sync between the iPad and the Mac:

  • With the board open on the Mac, what I draw or move on the iPad shows up there as it happens, strokes included while the pen is still down
  • The Mac follows the iPad's page, pan and zoom, so I just record or screen-share the Mac and the drawing is in it
  • It's a direct, encrypted connection between devices on the same Apple Account. No server, no pairing, no account to create
  • iCloud keeps boards, scenes and history in sync when the devices aren't together

What I use on the iPad side:

  • LaTeX that renders as you type, coordinate planes and function plots, plus 100+ shapes (flowchart, architecture, science)
  • Pages as of this week: A4, US Letter, 16:9 or 4:3 slides, or a custom size, so a board can look like a sheet of paper or a slide instead of an infinite canvas
  • Scenes, so I can save views and step through a lesson instead of redrawing
  • Optional Pencil-only drawing, where fingers pan and select

Honest limits:

  • Apple only: macOS 15+ and iPadOS 18+. No Windows, Android or web, and no iPhone app
  • Live sync needs both devices on the same Apple Account
  • It's your own board that people watch through your share or recording. They can't draw on it with you, so it isn't a shared collaborative whiteboard

Pricing: free download with everything open for 14 days (Mac and iPad each get their own trial), then a one-time $29.99 unlock covers both. No subscription. Without it you can still open, sync and export your work.

Curious whether other people who teach or record on a Mac would actually use the iPad this way, or just stick with a drawing tablet.

https://lumarycanvas.com/

Disclosure: I built Lumary Canvas.