Hi HN!
Super proud to showcase Foqos! I wanted to create a way to physically block apps on my phone, always had a bunch of NFC tags, combined the 2 together over the holiday break and Foqos was born. You can create profiles, write them to NFC tags and track your weekly focus.
Its completely open source and will always be free! There is an affiliate link in the app for nfc tags and donations are completely optional
Over the break I wanted to build something that was gonna make this easier for myself. I built it and made it totally free and open source. I don't see a competitive advantage, but just a fun challenge for myself to build and get this type of app reviewed.
Maybe I'll write a blog post about the apple review submission because that was a not fun lol
You can even use an airtag because it sees it as an NFC as well.
Can't you switch profiles on your phone without scanning an NFC tag already? Couldn't your app allow profile switching without requiring any NFC tags?
It's not clear to me what the NFC tags add to this experience.
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-a-focus-iphd62...
Having my phone ring at home and vibrate when away is the most obvious use case for this feature, and yet it can't be implemented because you can't toggle a physical switch in hardware.
I know the latest generation iPhones don't have those, and I think that's the right decision, but it's still disappointing for older-gen users.
If unblocking via software is easy too, this doesn't really work, but I could see giving the physical tag to a friend or leaving it somewhere in a different building causing enough friction for me to reconsider if I really want to go to the effort just to look at some news headlines.
on iphone, the built in screentime app is just a face id approval or your pin code, but what if instead you had to request approval and your friends on FindMy were the only people that could approve, by consensus
I've done a lot of thinking about cyberphysical art that used to look like
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111013706271196029
and now look like
https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social/post/3lbqfh7pesc2x
Notably with the QR code on the back I found people didn't understand the branding of the card and had to flip it over to know the affordances it offers which didn't work when the card was stuck to the wall, as in
https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social/post/3lbftgz6kok2c
I researched NFC tags as an option here and bought a 100 pack and a Sony FeliCa reader but found the problem of "communicating the affordance is available" was much worse, there's no standard logo (except one that belongs to the banks that they wouldn't give me permission to use) and not much awareness. I was irritated that NFC support is limited in iPads, for instance. So I stuck with QR codes that people understand.
Sounds cool but unnecessary.
I have ADHD though
I found that having this physical deterrent keeps myself accountable, that's kinda the reason I built it and showcased it
It worked pretty nicely but in the end I found it not to be all that useful and I’d be frustrated by the profile change as often as I was happy with it.
I'm curious if you have an NFC tag that you'd recommend or that you like to use?
Otherwise this is what I had around the house: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B075MD13Z7
You just give them the doohickey and ask for it back later. (Cloning the NFC tag is a much harder job that remembering a PIN.)
Other drawbacks include only a single period of "down time" per day. There is also an inability to totally block applications; the closest analogue is to set a maximum of one minute for the website or application.
I use them myself to limit some websites that waste my time
It is way too easy to click on 1 more minute, or 15 mins or ignore for the day
The only way to really block sites is to add them as adult websites and turn on parental controls
But can’t do that with apps
E.g. I have 2 NFC tags on my desk, when Tasker detects one of them, it calls a HTTP URL of a PHP script on my NAS, the script tells my Hue Bridge to switch on a Hue-enabled power socket (into which my monitor and speakers are plugged), and then the script sends a Wake-On-LAN packet to my desktop PC. The other one turns off that Hue-enabled power socket (I put my computer into sleep separately).
Might be easier to insist that phones charge overnight in some parentally-observable central area... Though I suppose they might use them for alarm clocks.
Anyway, my son has a phone (hand down from me 5 years ago) without cellular.