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Show HN: Nebula – Alarm clock where you grow stars while you sleep

345 points by rocketsloth 9y ago

mentos 9y ago
Game dev here. Should you include some sort of maximum amount of sleep per day to prevent people from setting alarms to grow their stars when they aren't sleeping?
- btbuildem 9y ago
  Hmm not everyone sleeps the same amount of time. I have a friend for whom a healthy night's sleep is 10+ hours, with lots of daytime naps.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. There is currently a hard limit in place where a user can't count a star towards the constellation based achievement system unless it grows for a minimum of one hour to prevent unethical star farming. Do you think that's sufficient?
  - mentos 9y ago
    Hmm I do appreciate the complexity involved in implementing a max number of hours per day you can grow a star. But I think it may be worth it. The more you clamp down on ways to exploit the system the more player's will respect their achievement. 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.
    - rocketsloth 9y ago
      "The more you clamp down on ways to exploit the system the more player's will respect their achievement." Those are very wise words and something that never crossed my mind. Master Sloth will definitely be making an appearance in some way and I've added it to the Trello board. I do plan on having some form of social interaction, probably something simple to start like sharing constellations you make to social media and I'm most likely going to implement a further limit on star making based on your suggestion. 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.
      - bigiain 9y ago
        Reminds me of one of my favourite Haiku: In matters of love, let the reptile brain decide. Marry based on smell.
        rocketsloth 9y ago
        this may be the best comment of the thread
      - depressedpanda 9y ago
        Before you get ahead of yourself with 'pivoting' Nebula into a gamified social network dating app, let me just say that I like Nebula pretty much as it is, in large part due to its simplicity. 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.
- telesilla 9y ago
  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of personal satisfaction? Or if I'm just in it to grow some stars, does it matter how I use the app?
  - mentos 9y ago
    Yea I guess my thought is that the 'carrot' in this system is growing a constellation. You dangle that out there as incentive for people to sleep healthy and wake up on time. 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.
- bastijn 9y ago
  Would be interesting to see if this could be linked to whatever these sleeping apps use to “measure” your sleeping rhythm. Bonus points for deep sleep etc. 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..
dom96 9y ago
Really awesome app! Any plans for an iOS version? :)
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thanks and 100%! The moment I get a chance I'm going to dive in
rocketsloth 9y ago
Hi HN, I just wanted to add that I'm looking for any kind of feedback on the app. I've been working on it since graduating in may and released it a couple of days ago.
- snakeboy 9y ago
  Very minor, but on the website "You snooze, you loose" I assume should read "You snooze, you lose". Great concept and I look forward to trying it!
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    Thanks for the catch! Classic English language, am I right. Appreciate that :)
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Is there any way I can disable the play-a-game-to-unlock feature? I kind of just want cool stars in my phone.
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    100% there are several dismissal options and one of them is just a simple stop button that you press to collect your star
- k_ 9y ago
  Seems really nice, congrats! I'll give it a try and give you some feedback in a few days
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    Thank you, really appreciate that
- zamalek 9y ago
  I'd love to see useful repeat options (it doesn't seem to support repeat at all currently), e.g. work days except public holidays.
kovek 9y ago
I really like it. I didn't try it yet but it feel like I would enjoy this points system for waking up on time. I noticed that over the summer, when I was excited about my work (and trying to meet deadlines), waking up on time was not an issue. Now that I'm back to going to school, it's easier to snooze/sleep in. Also, it's easier to go to bed at more random times. 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?
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Reinforcing good bedtime habits is a really interesting idea. Even if that can't guarantee a person is sleeping, it can force people to set their phones down for the night which is something at least I could definitely use. Maybe something like if a user moves their phone past a certain time, the star is destroyed. Going to explore the points option and a few others. Thank you for your feedback
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I'm glad to hear it. I've built an automated lighting system to encourage good sleep habits [1], which has helped a lot. But I'd still like to do better. Maybe the star is bigger and brighter with good sleep, and ends up a brown dwarf if you don't get enough? [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
    - rocketsloth 9y ago
      That's so cool! A lot of people swear by the sunshine alarm clocks and I'm definitely gonna have to try it out one of these days
  - friendzis 9y ago
    In my area summertime traffic is rather relaxed without significantly expressed traffic spikes, so journey time is almost independent from departure time. This summer I had liberty to come to work at any (reasonable) time. I spent large part of this summer without an alarm clock (had one safeguard alarm that always fired at work or during commute). 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.
caio1982 9y ago
Any app that guarantees I will not snooze nor ignore it (as in my brain simply gets used to the alarm and I won't even have a chance waking up with it if I want to)? It might cost $5.000 USD, I'll buy it.
- diggan 9y ago
  How about one of these, requires you to solve a puzzle to turn off. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathe-alarm-clock/id823532916?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathe-alarm-clock/id82353291... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wroclawstudio.puzzlealarmclock&hl=en 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.
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    this app has quite a few dismissal methods designed to do similar things to all these examples, like having to scan a QR code (which is optimally taped to your bathroom mirror to force you to get out of bed), having to solve a brain teaser based around the Stroop Test, and having to shake your phone several times to shut the alarm off
  - caio1982 9y ago
    I tried that one for iOS and it requires you to enable the alarm every night manually (which often I just forgot to) and I COULD solve some of them without even remembering I did later :-( My current setup is an alarm clock with an actual bell that is noisy as fsck. Yes, an old school alarm clock :-(
    - vlasev 9y ago
      Balance the alarm clock on the edge of a tin pot, so that when it goes off, it will just fall inside and make a bunch more noise.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
osrec 9y ago
Congrats on going live :) 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)!
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thank you, I knew I wasn't the only one. Really like Bx too
  - osrec 9y ago
    You're definitely not the only one! I think parents that care also tend to be much more risk averse where their kids are concerned. I'm told that I'll be the same when I have kids! Also, thanks for checking out Bx, glad you liked it :)
- nblavoie 9y ago
  @osrec: DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN
  - osrec 9y ago
    Interesting, it seems to be up everywhere I've pinged it from. Give it a try again if you have time - it should work. Are you accessing from a corporate network/unusual location by any chance?
- 2pointsomone 9y ago
  Agreed, those mom quotes cracked me up!
amelius 9y ago
This reminds me of the ringtone era, where some people made tons of money by making useless things.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  I'm sure a lot of people will feel the same way as you and I completely respect that. I made this app above all else to learn as much Android as I could after graduating. I tried to expand on a simple concept to make something I thought was cool and really had a lot of fun doing it, but I know this isn't everyone's thing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmiserez 9y ago
    I studied with these guys: https://www.theverge.com/2014/1/4/5273474/google-acquires-bitspin-timely 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!
    - amelius 9y ago
      > [...] got acquired by Google [...] It was buttery smooth and beautiful but beyond that didn’t even any special functionality. 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.
mholt 9y ago
Clever! I just installed it, and I like how this works so far. The store has 2 options for disabling ads. You can buy three of the first for a dollar which deplete each time your star explodes, or you can permanently disable ads for $2.50. I like this "choose your strategy" approach: you can buy incentives to get up in the morning, or just pay to have the ad-free experience.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thanks! I didn't want to force people in to the "money shredder" mode, but I think that it works really well and provides an effective uninstall/force quit protection for users who try to take shortcuts to dismiss the alarm in the morning.
agumonkey 9y ago
gamifying sleep, what a surprising concept
clearing 9y ago
This reminds me of apps published by ShaoKan Pi. Particularly, SleepTown. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleeptown/id1210251567?mt=8 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.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  That's a really well designed app, thanks for sharing. I really like their bedtime reinforcement mechanism. Sleep town seems to be much more focused on the scheduling aspect of sleep and reinforcing strict routines whereas at the moment Nebula is much more focused on going after the snooze button, but both of these things are quite related.
alanfriedman 9y ago
The testimonials section is hilarious and the app looks great too.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  thank you!
irq 9y ago
Could we consider adding [Android only] to the title?
federicoponzi 9y ago
I like the concept, and loved the reviews. Definitely gonna give it a try :)
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  much appreciated :)
SubiculumCode 9y ago
Not all gamification of life is a bad thing. The app seems very nice! 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.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Really appreciate the feedback, I'm exploring several options for this that will be added in the near future and think that you're right, snooze is only half the battle.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
plttn 9y ago
Random note: the fact that you're showing an iPhone device frame but using Android screenshots is one of those things that makes me unreasonably unhappy. I do like the idea of the app though.
- moonka 9y ago
  It made me go to from "damn, I want to try, but I'm android" to "woot". Love the reviews too.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Funnily enough your complaint that the small generic rectangular outline representing a phone is the wrong brand is the sort of thing that makes me unreasonably irritated.
  - plttn 9y ago
    The problem is that even though there's Play Store and App Store badges, to me, my brain subconsciously parses "this app is available for you" based on the existence of the home button in the mockup. I saw the home button, I assumed iOS only.
k_bx 9y ago
Just wanted to mention (maybe someone finds this interesting) another "sleep gamification" app Ukrainians made – http://wakeapp.com.ua/index_en.html http://wakeapp.com.ua/index_en.html 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 :)
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  beautiful app, well done :)
markoutso 9y ago
Nice idea but not executed to it's full potential. 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.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Very fair, this is just version 1.0 and I have lots of plans for things I think might persuade you soon, but for now I totally understand. I'll be back
noxecanexx 9y ago
Is there any reason why this isn't available in Nigeria
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  very sorry about that, I'm fixing that now. I messed up the country options when I was uploading.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  it should be available now :)
firefoxd 9y ago
I have to mention The Alarm Clock Problem: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQAM5ADfYQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQAM5ADfYQ Maybe a way to entice the user to sleep early in the first place could improve it.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  I agree that sleep is a complicated thing and that bedtime routines are vital to overall healthy sleep habits. I think you're right and that reinforcing good sleep scheduling is the next step with the app in terms of big features
edpichler 9y ago
Gamefication for an alarm clock to make people wake up on time. Well done! Inspiring idea!
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  thanks very much
yulapshun 9y ago
Did you design the UI yourself? For me (and maybe most programmers) the hardest part of building an application is UI design. You did a really nice job.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  I did do it by myself and I really appreciate you saying that. I used/modified a few icons and pictures that I found online though and their awesome creators (who released them under attribution licenses) are credited in the graphics credits section. I struggled a lot with the design and it was by far the most time consuming part of the app.
  - technics256 9y ago
    Nice! Where did you find the icons? Been looking for some for my healthcare startup website. Thaks!
    - rocketsloth 9y ago
      https://material.io/icons/ https://material.io/icons/ is great, all open source and you can edit their vectors to make your own variations https://thenounproject.com/ https://thenounproject.com/ is also awesome, a lot of variety https://www.flaticon.com/ https://www.flaticon.com/ is great for colorful things
  - technics256 9y ago
    Nice! Where did you find the icons? Been looking for some for my healthcare startup website. Thanks!
Waterluvian 9y ago
This is beautiful. Can you encourage me to get a good night's sleep somehow? Make my stars a special colour if they're made from plenty of sleep rather than just a bit of sleep?
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thank you! I have gotten a lot of awesome suggestions about the idea of reinforcing bedtime and helping promote good sleep habits and am looking in to a few options for that in future updates
lab3726 9y ago
Really cool idea. On the website...is there a reason an iPhone template is used to show off an app that is Android-only?
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thank you, the template I used had these nice phone graphics and I thought they were just generic phones because I wasn't paying attention. Going to fix that now.
greenmango333 9y ago
I swear by the sunshine alarm clocks. I really like it.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  I've heard really great things about them
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mythas 9y ago
I like the app but am offended by the idea of stars being made from cosmic dust. Can you add a divine intervention option?
- deusum 9y ago
  Expect DLC for polytheists in time for Xmas.
sbussard 9y ago
love the reviews on the site
aagha 9y ago
I'm so glad to start seeing more and more apps come out on Android first. What a big change from a couple of years ago.
jerezzprime 9y ago
Is it possible to make it start automatically? I like that generally I don't think about my alarm on my phone, I just go to sleep and it goes off the next day.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  I'm considering a few options to give more freedom with the alarm (such as repeating and multiple alarms), but I'm working on making sure they integrate with the overall design and concept before jumping the gun.
superasn 9y ago
Only installing it because of the great testimonials it has gotten from your mom
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

345 points by rocketsloth 9y ago

Game dev here. Should you include some sort of maximum amount of sleep per day to prevent people from setting alarms to grow their stars when they aren't sleeping?

btbuildem 9y ago
Hmm not everyone sleeps the same amount of time. I have a friend for whom a healthy night's sleep is 10+ hours, with lots of daytime naps.
rocketsloth 9y ago
Thanks for the feedback. There is currently a hard limit in place where a user can't count a star towards the constellation based achievement system unless it grows for a minimum of one hour to prevent unethical star farming. Do you think that's sufficient?
- mentos 9y ago
  Hmm I do appreciate the complexity involved in implementing a max number of hours per day you can grow a star. But I think it may be worth it. The more you clamp down on ways to exploit the system the more player's will respect their achievement. 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.
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    "The more you clamp down on ways to exploit the system the more player's will respect their achievement." Those are very wise words and something that never crossed my mind. Master Sloth will definitely be making an appearance in some way and I've added it to the Trello board. I do plan on having some form of social interaction, probably something simple to start like sharing constellations you make to social media and I'm most likely going to implement a further limit on star making based on your suggestion. 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.
    - bigiain 9y ago
      Reminds me of one of my favourite Haiku: In matters of love, let the reptile brain decide. Marry based on smell.
      - rocketsloth 9y ago
        this may be the best comment of the thread
    - depressedpanda 9y ago
      Before you get ahead of yourself with 'pivoting' Nebula into a gamified social network dating app, let me just say that I like Nebula pretty much as it is, in large part due to its simplicity. 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.
telesilla 9y ago
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of personal satisfaction? Or if I'm just in it to grow some stars, does it matter how I use the app?
- mentos 9y ago
  Yea I guess my thought is that the 'carrot' in this system is growing a constellation. You dangle that out there as incentive for people to sleep healthy and wake up on time. 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.
bastijn 9y ago
Would be interesting to see if this could be linked to whatever these sleeping apps use to “measure” your sleeping rhythm. Bonus points for deep sleep etc. 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..

dom96 9y ago

Really awesome app! Any plans for an iOS version? :)

rocketsloth 9y ago
Thanks and 100%! The moment I get a chance I'm going to dive in

rocketsloth 9y ago

Hi HN, I just wanted to add that I'm looking for any kind of feedback on the app. I've been working on it since graduating in may and released it a couple of days ago.

snakeboy 9y ago
Very minor, but on the website "You snooze, you loose" I assume should read "You snooze, you lose". Great concept and I look forward to trying it!
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thanks for the catch! Classic English language, am I right. Appreciate that :)
nerdponx 9y ago
Is there any way I can disable the play-a-game-to-unlock feature? I kind of just want cool stars in my phone.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  100% there are several dismissal options and one of them is just a simple stop button that you press to collect your star
k_ 9y ago
Seems really nice, congrats! I'll give it a try and give you some feedback in a few days
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  Thank you, really appreciate that
zamalek 9y ago
I'd love to see useful repeat options (it doesn't seem to support repeat at all currently), e.g. work days except public holidays.

kovek 9y ago

I really like it. I didn't try it yet but it feel like I would enjoy this points system for waking up on time. I noticed that over the summer, when I was excited about my work (and trying to meet deadlines), waking up on time was not an issue. Now that I'm back to going to school, it's easier to snooze/sleep in. Also, it's easier to go to bed at more random times. 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?

rocketsloth 9y ago
Reinforcing good bedtime habits is a really interesting idea. Even if that can't guarantee a person is sleeping, it can force people to set their phones down for the night which is something at least I could definitely use. Maybe something like if a user moves their phone past a certain time, the star is destroyed. Going to explore the points option and a few others. Thank you for your feedback
- wpietri 9y ago
  I'm glad to hear it. I've built an automated lighting system to encourage good sleep habits [1], which has helped a lot. But I'd still like to do better. Maybe the star is bigger and brighter with good sleep, and ends up a brown dwarf if you don't get enough? [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    That's so cool! A lot of people swear by the sunshine alarm clocks and I'm definitely gonna have to try it out one of these days
- friendzis 9y ago
  In my area summertime traffic is rather relaxed without significantly expressed traffic spikes, so journey time is almost independent from departure time. This summer I had liberty to come to work at any (reasonable) time. I spent large part of this summer without an alarm clock (had one safeguard alarm that always fired at work or during commute). 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.

caio1982 9y ago

Any app that guarantees I will not snooze nor ignore it (as in my brain simply gets used to the alarm and I won't even have a chance waking up with it if I want to)? It might cost $5.000 USD, I'll buy it.

diggan 9y ago
How about one of these, requires you to solve a puzzle to turn off. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathe-alarm-clock/id823532916?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathe-alarm-clock/id82353291... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wroclawstudio.puzzlealarmclock&hl=en 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.
- rocketsloth 9y ago
  this app has quite a few dismissal methods designed to do similar things to all these examples, like having to scan a QR code (which is optimally taped to your bathroom mirror to force you to get out of bed), having to solve a brain teaser based around the Stroop Test, and having to shake your phone several times to shut the alarm off
- caio1982 9y ago
  I tried that one for iOS and it requires you to enable the alarm every night manually (which often I just forgot to) and I COULD solve some of them without even remembering I did later :-( My current setup is an alarm clock with an actual bell that is noisy as fsck. Yes, an old school alarm clock :-(
  - vlasev 9y ago
    Balance the alarm clock on the edge of a tin pot, so that when it goes off, it will just fall inside and make a bunch more noise.
rocketsloth 9y ago

osrec 9y ago

Congrats on going live :) 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)!

rocketsloth 9y ago
Thank you, I knew I wasn't the only one. Really like Bx too
- osrec 9y ago
  You're definitely not the only one! I think parents that care also tend to be much more risk averse where their kids are concerned. I'm told that I'll be the same when I have kids! Also, thanks for checking out Bx, glad you liked it :)
nblavoie 9y ago
@osrec: DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN
- osrec 9y ago
  Interesting, it seems to be up everywhere I've pinged it from. Give it a try again if you have time - it should work. Are you accessing from a corporate network/unusual location by any chance?
2pointsomone 9y ago
Agreed, those mom quotes cracked me up!

amelius 9y ago

This reminds me of the ringtone era, where some people made tons of money by making useless things.

rocketsloth 9y ago
I'm sure a lot of people will feel the same way as you and I completely respect that. I made this app above all else to learn as much Android as I could after graduating. I tried to expand on a simple concept to make something I thought was cool and really had a lot of fun doing it, but I know this isn't everyone's thing.
- deleted 9y ago
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- jmiserez 9y ago
  I studied with these guys: https://www.theverge.com/2014/1/4/5273474/google-acquires-bitspin-timely 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!
  - amelius 9y ago
    > [...] got acquired by Google [...] It was buttery smooth and beautiful but beyond that didn’t even any special functionality. 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.

mholt 9y ago

Clever! I just installed it, and I like how this works so far. The store has 2 options for disabling ads. You can buy three of the first for a dollar which deplete each time your star explodes, or you can permanently disable ads for $2.50. I like this "choose your strategy" approach: you can buy incentives to get up in the morning, or just pay to have the ad-free experience.

rocketsloth 9y ago
Thanks! I didn't want to force people in to the "money shredder" mode, but I think that it works really well and provides an effective uninstall/force quit protection for users who try to take shortcuts to dismiss the alarm in the morning.

agumonkey 9y ago

gamifying sleep, what a surprising concept

clearing 9y ago

This reminds me of apps published by ShaoKan Pi. Particularly, SleepTown. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleeptown/id1210251567?mt=8 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.

rocketsloth 9y ago
That's a really well designed app, thanks for sharing. I really like their bedtime reinforcement mechanism. Sleep town seems to be much more focused on the scheduling aspect of sleep and reinforcing strict routines whereas at the moment Nebula is much more focused on going after the snooze button, but both of these things are quite related.

alanfriedman 9y ago

The testimonials section is hilarious and the app looks great too.

rocketsloth 9y ago
thank you!

irq 9y ago

Could we consider adding [Android only] to the title?

federicoponzi 9y ago

I like the concept, and loved the reviews. Definitely gonna give it a try :)

rocketsloth 9y ago
much appreciated :)

SubiculumCode 9y ago

Not all gamification of life is a bad thing. The app seems very nice! 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.

rocketsloth 9y ago
Really appreciate the feedback, I'm exploring several options for this that will be added in the near future and think that you're right, snooze is only half the battle.
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plttn 9y ago

Random note: the fact that you're showing an iPhone device frame but using Android screenshots is one of those things that makes me unreasonably unhappy. I do like the idea of the app though.

moonka 9y ago
It made me go to from "damn, I want to try, but I'm android" to "woot". Love the reviews too.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Funnily enough your complaint that the small generic rectangular outline representing a phone is the wrong brand is the sort of thing that makes me unreasonably irritated.
- plttn 9y ago
  The problem is that even though there's Play Store and App Store badges, to me, my brain subconsciously parses "this app is available for you" based on the existence of the home button in the mockup. I saw the home button, I assumed iOS only.

k_bx 9y ago

Just wanted to mention (maybe someone finds this interesting) another "sleep gamification" app Ukrainians made – http://wakeapp.com.ua/index_en.html http://wakeapp.com.ua/index_en.html 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 :)

rocketsloth 9y ago
beautiful app, well done :)

markoutso 9y ago

Nice idea but not executed to it's full potential. 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.

rocketsloth 9y ago
Very fair, this is just version 1.0 and I have lots of plans for things I think might persuade you soon, but for now I totally understand. I'll be back

noxecanexx 9y ago

Is there any reason why this isn't available in Nigeria

rocketsloth 9y ago
very sorry about that, I'm fixing that now. I messed up the country options when I was uploading.
rocketsloth 9y ago
it should be available now :)

firefoxd 9y ago

I have to mention The Alarm Clock Problem: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQAM5ADfYQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQAM5ADfYQ Maybe a way to entice the user to sleep early in the first place could improve it.

rocketsloth 9y ago
I agree that sleep is a complicated thing and that bedtime routines are vital to overall healthy sleep habits. I think you're right and that reinforcing good sleep scheduling is the next step with the app in terms of big features

edpichler 9y ago

Gamefication for an alarm clock to make people wake up on time. Well done! Inspiring idea!

rocketsloth 9y ago
thanks very much

yulapshun 9y ago

Did you design the UI yourself? For me (and maybe most programmers) the hardest part of building an application is UI design. You did a really nice job.

rocketsloth 9y ago
I did do it by myself and I really appreciate you saying that. I used/modified a few icons and pictures that I found online though and their awesome creators (who released them under attribution licenses) are credited in the graphics credits section. I struggled a lot with the design and it was by far the most time consuming part of the app.
- technics256 9y ago
  Nice! Where did you find the icons? Been looking for some for my healthcare startup website. Thaks!
  - rocketsloth 9y ago
    https://material.io/icons/ https://material.io/icons/ is great, all open source and you can edit their vectors to make your own variations https://thenounproject.com/ https://thenounproject.com/ is also awesome, a lot of variety https://www.flaticon.com/ https://www.flaticon.com/ is great for colorful things
- technics256 9y ago
  Nice! Where did you find the icons? Been looking for some for my healthcare startup website. Thanks!

Waterluvian 9y ago

This is beautiful. Can you encourage me to get a good night's sleep somehow? Make my stars a special colour if they're made from plenty of sleep rather than just a bit of sleep?

rocketsloth 9y ago
Thank you! I have gotten a lot of awesome suggestions about the idea of reinforcing bedtime and helping promote good sleep habits and am looking in to a few options for that in future updates

lab3726 9y ago

Really cool idea. On the website...is there a reason an iPhone template is used to show off an app that is Android-only?

rocketsloth 9y ago
Thank you, the template I used had these nice phone graphics and I thought they were just generic phones because I wasn't paying attention. Going to fix that now.

greenmango333 9y ago

I swear by the sunshine alarm clocks. I really like it.

rocketsloth 9y ago
I've heard really great things about them

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mythas 9y ago

I like the app but am offended by the idea of stars being made from cosmic dust. Can you add a divine intervention option?

deusum 9y ago
Expect DLC for polytheists in time for Xmas.

sbussard 9y ago

love the reviews on the site

aagha 9y ago

I'm so glad to start seeing more and more apps come out on Android first. What a big change from a couple of years ago.

jerezzprime 9y ago

Is it possible to make it start automatically? I like that generally I don't think about my alarm on my phone, I just go to sleep and it goes off the next day.

rocketsloth 9y ago
I'm considering a few options to give more freedom with the alarm (such as repeating and multiple alarms), but I'm working on making sure they integrate with the overall design and concept before jumping the gun.

superasn 9y ago

Only installing it because of the great testimonials it has gotten from your mom

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