Show HN: Phantas – A browser-based binaural strobe engine (Web Audio API) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Phantas – A browser-based binaural strobe engine (Web Audio API)

phantas.io

28 pointsAphantaZach10 comments

Hi HN, I’m a new developer with Aphantasia (no mental imagery).

A side effect of this is that regaining focus after a distraction takes me a long time (the "23-minute lag"). I tried standard binaural beats, but I discovered a technical flaw: streaming compression (AAC/MP3 on Spotify/YouTube) often muddies the specific phase differences required for effective entrainment.

I realized that to get effective entrainment, I needed lossless audio. Since I couldn't stream lossless easily, I decided to generate it locally. I built Phantas – a browser engine that uses the Web Audio API to generate raw sine waves in real-time on the client side. This ensures mathematical precision with zero compression artifacts.

For audio it uses Native AudioContext for dual-oscillator generation (Left/Right channel split).

For visuals I pair the audio with a 490nm Cyan strobe. The hardest part was syncing the visual flash (using requestAnimationFrame) to the audio pulse without "drift" caused by JavaScript's event loop latency.

I built this primarily for myself. Subjectively, it has reduced my "ramp-up" time from ~20 minutes to about 5 minutes.

I’m releasing the generator for free (no login) to see if this works for others or if it's just my specific brain chemistry. I’d love feedback on:

- Audio/Visual Sync: Does the strobe feel tight on your specific browser/refresh rate?

- Intensity: Are the default 14Hz flickers too aggressive?

Open articleView on HN

My thoughts:

- Allow enter/leave Driver mode even while sound is playing

- Hide the "tab to minimize" after several seconds

- Allow customize the pattern. Now it's hard coded perlin noise animation, before it was blank screen white/black without texture.

- Cannot enter email address to unlock private beta while sound is active (chars getting deleting while typing).

- Loses Focus rapidly on multi monitor setup, even when not touching the browser. It seems it's sensitive to focus/unfocus events, not sure what's the exact cause. PS: Regular full screen videos form for example youtube never lose fullscreen with my browser.

- Fullscreen does not full whole screen, there's black border left and right, it seems you're animating a square, not the full landscape rectangle.

- The jump from gain 1 to gain 2 is quite big, so i have to reduce the volume on the system sound, that's quiet annoying, since it's for all browser tabs then / even the whole system, depending on mixer settings.

And several more bugs, i do not remember them all.

One important question, that comes in mind all the time: Is this project vibe coded? Don't get me wrong, i also startet to begin vibe coding my projects, but it seems there's a little mess in the code (without looking into the obfuscated code).

This is awesome feedback, thank you. Some of this I have been trying to dial in, and I just pushed an update to almost everything you mentioned:

Fixes Deployed: Ghost Typing: You were spot on. I was defining the modal inside the main render loop. Moved it out, so the input is stable now.

Audio Focus: Removed the visibilitychange listener. It should now persist on multi-monitor setups without cutting out.

Texture Toggle: Added a specific button to toggle between "Neural Grain" (noise) and "Pure Light" (solid strobe) so you can customize the pattern.

Volume Taper: Switched the gain slider to logarithmic scaling so the jump from 0-10% isn't deafening.

UI Clutter: The "Tap to Minimize" overlay now fades out automatically after 3 seconds.

On Vibe Coding... guilty as charged.

This project evolved rapidly from a hacky passion project to help myself focus, into an attempt to build something worth sharing with others. I built the initial engine to prioritize the DSP/audio math, and the React architecture definitely suffered

Would love to know if the multi-monitor issue is resolved on your end now.

ERROR> https://phantas.io/_next/static/chunks/f60f633011df6d3a.js(5...: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'cancel')

Good catch. That’s an unguarded speechSynthesis call in the cleanup function. likely crashing on browsers that block the Speech API (or in privacy mode).

Just pushed a fix to wrap it in a conditional check. It should be live in ~2 minutes. Thanks for the stack trace!

It looks like a fun toy and i don't mean to disrespect but isn't this kind of a snake oil that's bordrline with placebo?

I mean, strobing light at specific hz will definitely have some effect on increased hz activity in your brain somewhat, and perhaps even relax me, but whether would that translate to "deep work" or just flshing light in my face would vary from person to person. And the gained benefits would be probably very dimnishing (like the whole "premium bineural beats" scams)

Plus the "unlock pro for targeted emotional regulation" souns veeeeery far fetched and fishy.

But if it gets popular i'm pretty sure some people would buy it (hell, people buy "good energy stones for good aura" to protect from reptilians or something)

Fair critique. The wellness space is definitely flooded with 'quantum energy' nonsense so the skepticism is appreciated.

I look at this tool less like a 'magic brain pill' and more like a metronome for a musician. A metronome doesn't make you play better, but it mechanically forces you to stick to a tempo. This app just saturates your visual cortex with a steady rhythm so your brain stops scanning the room for distractions. It’s essentially a distraction-cancellation for focus.

As for the 'emotional regulation' bit—I do admit that comes off as marketing speak(not my background!) It really just refers to wavelength impact: Red light avoids triggering melanopsin (good for winding down), while Cyan/Blue light triggers wakefulness (good for mornings). No magic stones involved

Any evidence supporting “higher performance”?

Totally fair question. "Higher performance" is definitely a subjective claim, so I should clarify the mechanism I'm relying on.

The core concept is Photic Driving (the "Frequency Following Response"). There is decent literature (e.g., Herrmann, 2001) showing that the visual cortex effectively synchronizes its firing rate to match high-amplitude external flickers (like a 14Hz strobe).

My goal with this tool is to induce Transient Hypofrontality (down-regulation of the prefrontal cortex), which is often associated with "Flow States" (Dietrich, 2003).

To be clear: I haven't run a clinical trial. I built it to replicate the "Ganzflicker" effects (Reeder, 2021) in a browser environment to help with my own Aphantasia. Subjectively, it helps me clear cognitive noise faster than silence, but I'm releasing it for free to see if that holds true for others or if it's just placebo.

All good - just interested in what the theory is behind it, and how effective it is purported to be.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Apologies to anyone who got flash-banged by the white screen earlier. I pushed a hotfix that accidentally nuked my Tailwind config and the animation engine. The site should be fully restored now. Thanks for your patience.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com