I built Simple Warm Reminder for my father, who sometimes forgets small tasks as he gets older.
He does not need a new system. He already has a lifetime of routines and habits. What slips are the tiny things that modern life quietly punishes you for: turning off the stove, switching off power, bringing in laundry, checking the gas.
Most reminder apps, including the ones I personally like, are built for people who enjoy managing tasks and lists. My father is not one of them. He wants the opposite of an infinite list: a small panel of obvious buttons he can trust.
Simple Warm Reminder is my attempt to build that panel.
Why another reminder app?
On paper, you can already do everything inside the default Reminders app or any popular to‑do manager. In practice, they bring a lot of extra surface area: projects, tags, notes, priorities, shared lists, smart lists, badges, and so on.
For some people, this is empowering. For others, especially seniors or anyone who is already tired, that extra surface area is another source of friction and guilt.
I wanted an app that:
- Shows only a handful of important reminders.
- Has extra‑large, readable text.
- Feels calm instead of alarmist.
- Does not collect or upload any data.
That scope is narrow on purpose. Narrow software is easier to understand.
Open, tap, done
The design loop for Simple Warm Reminder is intentionally short:
- Open the app. There is no account creation or onboarding maze.
- Tap a large button. Each preset is a glass‑styled card with big text like “Turn off stove” or “Bring in laundry”.
- Wait for the alert. When the time comes, a clear tone plays. That is it.
You can set presets to run daily at fixed times, or as one‑off timers when you need a gentle nudge a few minutes later. The app is opinionated: it wants to handle the same few tasks really well instead of being a universal inbox.
Designing for calm, not control
When you design productivity tools, there is always a temptation to add dashboards, charts, and streaks. With Simple Warm Reminder, I tried to move in the opposite direction:
- No badges or counters.
- No timeline.
- No concept of “inbox zero”.
Instead, the promotion screenshots show the real UI: a small set of big, colorful buttons. They are meant to feel more like physical switches than items in a database.
For my father, this matters. A switch invites a quick decision: on or off. A list invites negotiation: Should I reorganize this? Am I doing enough? I want the app to be a quiet helper, not a dashboard of judgment.
Privacy as a feature
The other strong requirement is privacy. Simple Warm Reminder does not collect, store, or transmit personal data. It runs entirely on‑device, without analytics SDKs or tracking.
For my father, this is partly about trust. For me, it is also about architecture. When you do not depend on servers or accounts, the app becomes easier to reason about and maintain as a solo indie developer.
About the PRO upgrade
The app has a small PRO upgrade that adds extra gradients and more customization for notification text and sounds. It is a one‑time purchase, no subscription.
I deliberately do not push this hard in the UI. Right now, PRO exists more as an experiment: can I add a bit of delight for people who use the app every day without turning it into a monetization machine?
If I see that the PRO features make the app meaningfully better for real people (including my father), I will iterate. If not, they will stay small and optional.
What I learned
Working on Simple Warm Reminder reminded me of a few simple truths:
- You can build something meaningful even when the idea sounds “too small”.
- Designing for one specific person (in my case, my father) creates clarity you rarely get from generic personas.
- Simplicity is not the absence of features; it is a series of hard decisions about what not to support.
If any of this resonates with you—maybe you have a parent, partner, or even a future version of yourself who forgets small things—you can take a look at the app here: