I made a Mac menu bar app that holds your screen hostage until the webcam sees you actually drink water
Like most people, I’ve installed many reminder apps and ignored all of them like how we all snoozed our alarms. By 4pm my hydration status is usually two coffees and "I should drink more water tomorrow". So I built the app equivalent of a mafia enforcer. Hydration Hostage sits in your menu bar, and on your schedule it takes over your screen. The normal way out is simple: take an actual sip of water. The camera checks locally and unlocks when it sees the cup reach your mouth. Privacy stuff, because camera: 100% on-device using Apple’s Vision framework Frames are analyzed in memory and discarded. Nothing is uploaded. Works fully offline. No account required. No camera data analytics. Esc is always an emergency exit. It’s enforcement, not ransomware. There are three modes depending on how much you trust yourself: Gentle: asks nicely Enforcer: checks if you actually drink Hostage: does not trust you at all Pricing: free download, all features free for 7 days, then $14.99 once for lifetime during launch week. After that it goes to $19.99. No subscription. It's v1.0 from one person, so I really appreciate any feedback. Curious how y'all handle this: When was the last time you realized you hadn’t had enough water during a workday, and what made you notice? What do you currently do, if anything, to remind yourself to drink water while working? When a hydration reminder shows up, what usually happens next? Check out my website: https://www.hydrationhostage.com/ Link for App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hydration-hostage/id6772677304?mt=12
Collected discussion
does it work with beer ? asking for my friend !! JK nice app 😃
hahah I can help you hydrate, but hey you still decide your lifestyle 😂 Why don't your give it a try since Friday is a perfect day to try it 😛 Let me know 🙈
make one for fixing slouching
That's a great idea and super helpful! I will look into it and let you know. In the meantime you can try to get some more water first 😄
This is the right approach to habit enforcement -- make avoidance more effortful than compliance. Most reminder apps lose because dismissing a notification is frictionless. Blocking the screen and requiring physical proof flips the friction asymmetry entirely. The specific mechanism doesn't matter; the cost/benefit math changes in your favor.
i lowk need this i don't fucking drink anything LMAO
My kidney and I were on the same boat. Welcome home.
Lol, nice idea
haha fantastic. Has it helped you successfully achieve your drink-more-water resolution?
It's enforcement, not ransomware" is going straight into my next standup when someone asks why the deploy is late
Can you add the option to have it make me do 10 squats every hour? I saw that this has the same benefits as a 30min walk for glucose levels if done hourly for 8hrs. Slouching reduction would help too, though it would have to ease in over time since those with the habit can’t just snap to it. Standing, stretching, jumping jacks, so many possibilities!
is this like malware? how can one bypass it if it goes rogue?
drinking so much water increases acidosis. We must only drink when we are thirsty. Even if you are thirsty your body is designed to burn fat to get the required amount of water for it to function correctly
The world needs versions with 20 push-ups.
Cool project! Would love to try this out - curious, are you using custom CoreML models or is it based on CoreML's pose detection?
Any plans to track coffee? Or Milk? At this point the app is useless for me because I do not drink water... 😉 Nice idea anyway!
Haha totally hear you. I'm running on coffee everyday as well. While the goal is to make you drink more water, it's detecting where you drinking, so you can still be creative and use it for coffee or milk as well if that helps you. Download and give it a try since it's free! Friendly reminder though if you drink coffee, might as well try to use it for water as well since that's how it started for me lol
LOL this is hilarious! You can extend this to so many other use cases! It'd be kinda cool if you could let the user define the activity that the app should see before it gives the computer back to the user
Yes that is my vision! It is the rabbit hole I’m trying not to fall into but also willing to fall into lol. Hydration was just the first hostage situation. Letting people define “give me my computer back only after I do X” could be really fun. Curious, what’s one habit you currently try to remind yourself to do during work or throughout the day, and what usually happens when that reminder pops up?
Love this! I am guilty of drinking very little water
Kinda expensive no? You can just get a larq bottle and get the same result but with a high-end bottle and app.
I actually own a larq. Be honest about how that goes: it’s a gadget. You’re obsessed for a month, maybe two, then it lives in a cabinet like a PS5 you stopped playing. Beautiful, expensive, but not making you drink more. A bottle can’t build the habit, and that’s literally my only job and the reason why I built this app. And it works with any bottle, mug, even your larq too.
Like the idea - started using the app and its making a positive difference. However, would be nice if you can add the ability to detect if there's a call in progress (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, etc) and not hold me hostage during that time. 😄
A drinking game you can play with your Mac. 🥃 Drink responsible! Don't drink and text your boss at the same time. 😂
Make one for taking a break from coding. 😛