I use ToDesktop for Conjure[0], and I love it. Given the nature of Conjure (Habit and Time Tracking), having a desktop app was important to many users, and many now use it instead of the web version (myself included).
As a solo developer, I avoided building a desktop app for months, mainly due to worrying about the maintenance overhead. I built the desktop app within a single day with ToDesktop Builder, and there has been no notable maintenance/overhead since (other than me over-engineering some features/enhancements).
ToDesktop's deployments are super smooth. The API and docs are pleasant to work with, which made integrating Conjure's habit and time tracking through the menu bar, native notifications, and multiple windows fairly straightforward.
I did worry about the performance and resource consumption with Electron-based apps, but the Apple M1/M2 Chips absolved that concern. Most of my users (mainly Mac and Windows) don't seem to mind/care/notice the Electron nature of the app.
Disclaimer: I'm also friends with the founder, he's from the same town as me in Ireland.
I've been building towards something like this with Conjure[0].
I've focused more on metrics, behavior, and achievement, with a rules engine for automatically completing habits and goals off those.
As you identified, the biggest obstacle for users has been the friction and overhead of tracking at scale. Integrations and automations have decreased that a lot. Transforming unstructured input through AI is super promising, and probably will make it more accessible to people who are less of the power-user/productivity-junkie persona type.
I use https://conjure.so as a habit, time and goal tracker. I built it for my own needs and to explore some ideas (habit rules engine, completion types, measurements).
I’ve been using https://akiflow.com/ for tasks for several months now (I switched from Omnifocus) and I love it.
I also use https://one-sec.app/ on my phone to add friction to opening apps I want to limit time on and try reduce distractions.
Working on Conjure (https://conjure.so) - a habit, time, and goal tracking platform with a habit rules engine, data layer, dashboards, integrations, and API, real-time across web, desktop and mobile.
Just released a free plan, after a mere 2.5 years of solo and bootstrapped dev.
Feel the primitives are in place now (even down to a Habit version control system for the rules engine) and have daily users who are getting value, so focusing now implementing user feedback and trying to get it out there (as have done no real marketing), before I tackle the next big feature I'm excited about.
Thank you so much! I spent some time researching subjective well-being, life satisfaction and behaviour change a few years ago when I was at an unhappy point in life, and started experimenting building systems that helped me be consistent and balanced in the things that are meaningful to me. I tried to figure out how to make it sustainable and low friction through automations, habit rules, emergency modes/completion types and so on. All this led to Conjure. For me, what differentiates it are Habit Completion Types, Habit Version Control, the Habit Rules Engine, being real-time across web, desktop and mobile, the Measurement system with custom fields and a bunch of other over-engineered things :)
I’ve been using and building Conjure[0] for 2 years, because I didn’t find the particular experience I wanted out there and wanted it to help me intentionally build and maintain behaviors conducive to life satisfaction and subjective well-being with minimal friction.
I explored a variety of things prior including Habitica, Beeminder, Forte, Everyday, Nomie (all excellent and strong in various dimensions).
Some of the use cases I had were:
- Be real time across web and mobile
- Keyboard shortcuts and a command Menu
- Automatically completing habits through rules and automation
- Have time based Habits (eg do 30 mins of reading a day)
- Habits be linked to Objectives/Goals and personal KPIs
- API and integrations with Apple Health, Zapier and others
I’ve been using Conjure to build Conjure for myself these past 2 years, bootstrapped and solo.
It fits my daily needs and those of a growing community of users, but I learned in the process, different solutions work best for different people. Some people want a very simple solutions to track 2-3 habits a day, others want to track 18 things a day in a sophisticated manner.
Vital is awesome. I’ve built various integrations for health services for Conjure[0], and the implementation and maintenance of these does not bring much joy to my life.
Having worked with Vital’s API and Webhooks, I am so excited for our use of it in Conjure to go live. I really love their normalization of data (such as sleep[1]).
As a solo developer, I avoided building a desktop app for months, mainly due to worrying about the maintenance overhead. I built the desktop app within a single day with ToDesktop Builder, and there has been no notable maintenance/overhead since (other than me over-engineering some features/enhancements).
ToDesktop's deployments are super smooth. The API and docs are pleasant to work with, which made integrating Conjure's habit and time tracking through the menu bar, native notifications, and multiple windows fairly straightforward.
I did worry about the performance and resource consumption with Electron-based apps, but the Apple M1/M2 Chips absolved that concern. Most of my users (mainly Mac and Windows) don't seem to mind/care/notice the Electron nature of the app.
Disclaimer: I'm also friends with the founder, he's from the same town as me in Ireland.
[0] https://conjure.so