Opening hook
The silence in the lecture hall was heavy, the kind that only exists right before a professor delivers a final exam prompt. I was sitting in the third row, mentally reviewing my notes, when my phone decided it was the perfect moment to announce a incoming call with a high-pitched, insistent ringtone. Every head turned. The professor paused, sighed, and waited for me to scramble. I fumbled with the volume rocker, face burning red, feeling that specific, sinking frustration of having failed a simple, repetitive task that I should have automated months ago.
The problem
That moment wasn't unique to me, and it certainly wasn't the first time it happened. We live in an era of constant connectivity, but our devices are surprisingly bad at understanding context. I needed a way to ensure my phone wouldn't disturb my environment during prayer, classes, or meetings, but the native Android 'Do Not Disturb' settings were too binary. They were either on or off, requiring manual intervention every single time I changed locations or entered a scheduled event.
I looked at existing solutions, but they were either bloated with telemetry, required invasive permissions, or simply failed to respect the device's sleep cycles. I wanted something that functioned as a background utility—a silent partner that managed sound profiles based on location or time without draining the battery. The friction wasn't just in the manual toggling; it was in the cognitive load of having to remember to flip a switch before walking into a room. I realized that if I wanted a tool that actually respected my privacy and my battery life, I had to stop looking for apps and start writing the logic myself.
