EPISODE · Jun 12, 2026 · 10 MIN
I Built a Sleep App for Myself. My First Review Was 1 Star
from Programming Tech Brief By HackerNoon · host HackerNoon
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/i-built-a-sleep-app-for-myself-my-first-review-was-1-star. I built Sleep Island to fade out sleep sounds after I fall asleep. A 1-star review pushed it toward snore recording and sleep reports. Check more stories related to programming at: https://hackernoon.com/c/programming. You can also check exclusive content about #ios-development, #indie-hackers, #vibe-coding, #sleep-tracker, #sleep-habits, #sleep-medication, #sleep-island, #sleep-app, and more. This story was written by: @ethan. Learn more about this writer by checking @ethan's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. I built a small iOS app because fixed sleep timers never worked for me. It started as a simple “play sounds, detect sleep, fade out” tool. Then my first App Store review was 1 star because the app did not record snoring, so I added snore and sleep-talk recording. The biggest lesson: small personal problems can become real products when you use them yourself and listen carefully to blunt feedback.
What this episode covers
This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/i-built-a-sleep-app-for-myself-my-first-review-was-1-star. I built Sleep Island to fade out sleep sounds after I fall asleep. A 1-star review pushed it toward snore recording and sleep reports. Check more stories related to programming at: https://hackernoon.com/c/programming. You can also check exclusive content about #ios-development, #indie-hackers, #vibe-coding, #sleep-tracker, #sleep-habits, #sleep-medication, #sleep-island, #sleep-app, and more. This story was written by: @ethan. Learn more about this writer by checking @ethan's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. I built a small iOS app because fixed sleep timers never worked for me. It started as a simple “play sounds, detect sleep, fade out” tool. Then my first App Store review was 1 star because the app did not record snoring, so I added snore and sleep-talk recording. The biggest lesson: small personal problems can become real products when you use them yourself and listen carefully to blunt feedback.
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I Built a Sleep App for Myself. My First Review Was 1 Star
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