←back to thread

Show HN: I made a app that uses NFC as a physical switch to block distractions

(www.foqos.app)
225 points awaseem | 4 comments | 21 Jan 25 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.613s | source

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

Link here: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/foqos/id6736793117

1. layer8 ◴[21 Jan 25 18:13 UTC] No.42783394[source]▶
By the way, you can trigger iOS shortcuts with NFC tags, so in principle you can trigger any functionality exposed as a Shortcut action. However, NFC recognition doesn’t always work as smoothly as one would hope.
replies(3): >>42784706 #>>42785890 #>>42786946 #
2. _tariky ◴[21 Jan 25 20:15 UTC] No.42784706[source]▶
It depends on the type and manufacturer of the NFC chip. I recommend using SLIX2 chips; they are a bit more expensive, but they work perfectly.
3. awaseem ◴[21 Jan 25 22:29 UTC] No.42785890[source]▶
Yeah 100% I think I commented this somewhere else as well. Your phone already has this natively built in, you don't need any of these apps at all.

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

4. whycome ◴[22 Jan 25 00:08 UTC] No.42786946[source]▶
To expand here, when using NFC to trigger an iOS shortcut, there's nothing actually written to the NFC. Instead, shortcuts responds when that NFC is present. So you can actually write something like a URL to the chip and have it act simultaneously.

You can even use an airtag because it sees it as an NFC as well.