Show HN: Nebula – Alarm clock where you grow stars while you sleep
alextumanov.com
alextumanov.com
What if you could also collect some points by going to bed at approximately the same time every night? Check the accelerometer for movement at the set time (example 8pm) and every fib(n)'th minute after that to make sure the person is sleeping?
If I wanted to stay late, I could. I just went to bed when I felt sleepy. I would wake up naturally at varying times. Interestingly, I think I had one of the most productive periods, I felt well rested even though my sleeping pattern was greatly messed up. Waking up at 4am for 3 hour trip to work was not torture. had to do the same last week and was literally a zombie.
Furthermore I am one those people who occasionally wake up at night. I could keep laying in bed for those 15 minutes or I can check something (idle miner, bullshit feed) on my phone and crash after 15 minutes. Such options really depend on the person, I guess.
It really made me chuckle and is just a great new take on the stock standard comments.
Great concept and I look forward to trying it!
On your website...why are you using an iPhone template to show off an Android-only app?
- In the app, cut down the introduction texts and steps. It takes like 30 taps to get the alarm started.
- Also, I found the pulse of the focused area (the circle) annoying and distracting when reading the text just next to it.
- Use briefer descriptions of the things in the guided tour(s). Every word you can remove is often an improvement. And, again, get rid of steps. I'd recommend 3-5 steps tops (and entirely!).
- Somewhere you write "Try to tap here to do something..." => Get rid of the "Try to". As a user, I know how to tap - just write "Tap here to ..."
- Make the sound selections (radio button lists) play the selected sound on tap: by default the top entry is selected. When I tap it—as I initially don't know how it sounds–it doesn't play the sound. I have to switch to the second entry and then back to the first one.
- 42 MB is quite large for "just an alarm clock." Most people won't bother, but keep in mind that even in 2017 software should be performant and, if not necessary, not bloated.
Besides these minor points, I have to say that the idea is great! I am really looking forward to use the app tonight :-)
intro/onboarding feedback: I agree with you and will look at ways to cut it down both in length and quality
- I just removed the "Try tapping" and changed it to tap cause I agree with you (it will be pushed out next update)
- you're 100% correct on the sound previews too, I implemented the listener as an onChanged rather than onClick, but will look into fixing that in the near future.
- the 42 MB is almost entirely due to mp3 sound files (the alarm ringtones + sleep engine sounds). I used compression to strike a balance between quality and space and also used seamless looping on the sleep engine to get rid of the need for giant audio files, but there is always room for dramatic improvement on that front and I'll keep working at it. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I think that once I get a back end going what I'd eventually like to do is have users download the tracks based on what they need (this might be a very naive approach though so correct me if that's a bad idea).
IMO the sleep sound feature seems to be something you should analyze whether it's used or not. If not (<5 or 10%?), drop the feature. If it's used, you might want to extend the collection (in the premium version only?), and then the user could download the sounds he/she wants.
If you're paying for the download bandwidth that might help too, as many will get the app and never use it.
You could use IAP to sell new media packs including high-quality.
I'm also looking in to giving users the option to change the color combination because I've received this feedback from two people now. If you have any suggestions for colors that would work for you please let me know and I'll add them to my trello board
Even color blind people know Ocean = Blue if given simple terms like you have. :)
If you're going with a "color blind" palette, just make sure you don't accidentally make it worse. I've seen many people mistakenly avoid e.g. red/green completely and end up with hues that are even less distinguishable.
A good low-tech approximation is to just check your palette in gray scale and make sure e.g. red/green or yellow/blue don't appear too similar. It's likely not necessary that a user knows which color each color is supposed to be but they will likely need to be able to distinguish them at a glance. Also make sure when filling in a shape with color (such as letters) that the shapes are big enough (i.e. bold enough) -- colors are easier to distinguish when they cover a larger surface (more photons, better vision).
I'm working on some alternative palettes right now, and will do my best not to make it worse. One option I'm considering is allowing users to customize the palette entirely by picking 4 colors themselves from a list.
Also while I'm not sure if this is accurate, the android developer mode settings offer the ability to simulate a color space based on various color blindnesses (Monochromacy, Deuteranomaly, Protanomaly, and Tritanomaly) so I'm working with that too.
It would be nice to have a launcher widget with a clock and a render of the nebula, similarly to what I have on my phone: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q2WL8dqZnSnCY8Of1
Also some animations would be nice, maybe use the accelerometer to Pan tilt the star? Would make a streak even more rewarding :).
Happily bought the accelerator pack :).
Animating everything would also be nice. You've already did an awesome job on the UI overall ;).
I've seen much worse stuff from established apps on the Play Store. Worked on one even. The designers had the displeasure of doing glorified skinning. On top of that there was a lot of bike shedding around buttons but pretty much everyone ignored the dark patterns that were dictated from the top ("Hooked" had to be our new Bible, thankfully we didn't have to read it except for a 4 page snippet explaining the addiction loop we would want to exploit).
https://github.com/nvanbenschoten/motion a bit outdated, not sure if it will work
https://github.com/material-motion/material-motion-android a bit fresher, but development stopped halfway through
> I'd also have to do extensive testing with any third party library for parallax cause it's so vital they release sensors properly and without fail when they are no longer needed to conserve battery.
Looking at what's available I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to re-implement a lib for that. You could pass on extensive testing IF you find a lib that's already used in another project.
Consider introducing new features like Sleep for Android does (a popup with a change list displayed on 1st run after an update). With this you could try moving users to the "Experimental" settings section. Note that having solid issue reporting from the app would immensely help then.
Another approach would be to set up a beta program for experimental stuff. Not sure which one would be more cost-effective, needs more investigation.
My problem in life is not waking up. Its going to bed early enough to get enough sleep. Encouraging an early bedtime would be a great feature :) IMO.
The quotes from your mom are rather funny, especially because they remind me of what my parents used to say while I was building my own SaaS (URL in profile if anyone's interested)!
The minimum of one hour is easy to circumvent. I wake up, turn off the alarm and then set another for 12 hours from now..
Theoretically if this is to track healthy sleeping then 6-8 hours max per day is the target. If users start logging 23 hours of sleep a day you probably shouldn't be rewarding them unless its a 'Master Sloth' achievement. haha
Maybe a simple solution is to prevent the player from receiving constellation growth unless at least X hours have passed since the last alarm completed? X could be a hardcoded 8 hours or maybe its the size of the previous alarm's duration?
Do you plan on having leaderboards or ways to share your constellation? If not I think that could be a feature to make the app more viral. I don't know if it would ever happen but imagine people sharing Nebula links in their Tinder bio as a way to signal healthy living...? Maybe there is a world where you pair users based on their constellation similarities. Could Nebula evolve into a dating app because maybe 'sleep patterns are actually one of the best indicators of compatibility' ? Probably far fetched and poisoning to the core idea but thought I'd share in case it plants any seeds for you.
As for Nebula evolving in to a dating app, if a single person ever shared anything related to this app in a tinder bio for any reason at all, I think that's when I'll know it's time for a hard pivot. I believe (and I could be totally wrong) there have been links to people's odors and who they find attractive because we seek partners with complementary immune systems to our own and one indicator of that is the way someone smells. Maybe sleep patterns have a similar correlation. If the pivot ever happens I'll credit you for giving the idea.
In matters of love,
let the reptile brain decide.
Marry based on smell.
I like the narrow scope of Nebula, and would happily pay for the app to remove the ads, once you've ironed out some of the rough edges (you really need to remove the flashing indicators in the tutorial).
Naturally, if you want to transform the app into something else in the future, that's entirely your choice, and I will simply have to move on to something else that doesn't try to cram social networks down my throat.
Also, why care if a user wants to abuse the app to get more constellations? They are only ruining it for themselves, and adding rules and checks will only complicate your code.
If people can circumvent the healthy sleeping by growing stars during the day then it cheapens the experience and I would argue reduces personal satisfaction for the average user.
But maybe the move is to leave the system as is and log how often users are 'cheating' the system to grow constellations and maybe the pivot is towards a game where all you do is grow stars.
Basically gamification of sleep rhythms. Of course with online leaderboards. Not sure what it means to be world #1 though ^_^. Maybe needs penalty points for too much sleep..
https://thenounproject.com/ is also awesome, a lot of variety
https://www.flaticon.com/ is great for colorful things
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleeptown/id1210251567?mt=8
Can't wait to try it on iOS because I love idle-growth apps like this. Might be worth looking into how Sleeptown/Forest implement features you're interested in.
Every time you snooze – you donate to the Army, thus money goes to the people who make sure you sleep in piece. I find it quite nice :)
I use an alarm for waking up. I expect a fast, usable ui to be able to set the time fast and options like recurring alarms,weekly scheduled alarms etc.
I wouldn't replace my vendor's slick, feature full without ads app for something that is not as least as good.
Maybe a way to entice the user to sleep early in the first place could improve it.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathe-alarm-clock/id82353291...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wroclawstu...
Otherwise I also remember some friends back in the days having an alarm clock that shoots away a thing in the other corner of the room, requires you to fetch it to disable the alarm.
My current setup is an alarm clock with an actual bell that is noisy as fsck. Yes, an old school alarm clock :-(
The daemon would just listen to the network and shutdown the system when requested to.
I do like the idea of the app though.
I saw the home button, I assumed iOS only.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/1/4/5273474/google-acquires-bi...
They did exactly what you did after graduating and their company got acquired (acqui-hired) by Google. Timely was the number one alarm clock app at the time. It was buttery smooth and beautiful but beyond that didn’t even any special functionality.
So, don’t take the parent comment too seriously!
I think you just confirmed my comment.
I just want to add:
- It saddens me that a lot of sentiment here is about making easy money. Imho, we should not stimulate people who just graduated to write screensavers to be sold to Google.
- In a world full of distraction, these apps provide even more distraction (here they even interfere with sleep).
- The people who make these apps have skills that can be put to use in much better and interesting ways.
- This kind of news does not contribute to the "high-tech news" that I really want to read.
That said, I applaud the OP for learning the Android APIs in a creative way.
Appreciate that and thanks for your feedback.