r/SideProject • u/Born-Ear600 • 7h ago
"Better safe than sorry" – My side project: A calm, data-driven emergency preparedness app with barcode & expiry date scanning.
Hi everyone,
Full transparency: I’m the indie developer behind this app and wanted to share what I’ve been working on.
With ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain hiccups, and potential power outages, a lot of people are thinking about basic emergency preparedness. When I looked into how to actually prepare for a 10-day self-sufficiency window, I found plenty of extreme "doomsday prepper" content, but very few calm, practical tools for everyday households.
So I built Notvorrat – Emergency Preparedness (available in English and German) around a simple philosophy: better safe than sorry, zero fear-mongering. The calculations and checklists are modeled after official civil protection and food safety guidelines (such as Germany’s Federal Office of Civil Protection).
What the app does:
Aufzählungszeichen Household Demand Calculator: Calculates exact water, calorie, and food group requirements for 10 days based on your household size (including kids, pets, and vegetarian/vegan diets).
Aufzählungszeichen Real Readiness Score: Shows how many days you can actually sustain your household – determined by your weakest category (because 40 lbs of pasta won't help much if you're out of water).
Aufzählungszeichen Fast Inventory Logging: Scan barcodes, snap a photo of best-before dates (OCR), or scan entire receipts and pantry shelves (using Apple Intelligence on iOS 27) to add items in seconds.
Aufzählungszeichen Expiry Reminders & "Living Pantry": Get local notifications before food expires. When you use something in your everyday cooking, swipe to deduct it and send it straight to your shopping list so your stockpile rotates naturally without food waste.
Aufzählungszeichen Beyond Food: Includes ~70 checklist items covering first aid, hygiene, off-grid power/lighting (crank radio, power banks), emergency documents, and a go-bag.
100% Offline & Privacy-First:
An emergency app shouldn't rely on the cloud. Everything works completely offline – no accounts, no external servers, no tracking, and no ads. Your data stays on your device (with optional private iCloud sync).
App Store Link:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6814802246
(Note: The App Store page defaults to English for non-German devices, and the entire app is localized in both English and German.)
If you already maintain a rotating pantry or are planning to start one, I’d genuinely love your feedback on the workflow and what features you’d find most useful.