NFC anchors for everyday life
Permy is a set of small NFC tags placed where the action happens — on the fridge door, the medicine cabinet, the door frame. One tap with your phone, that's it. No app to open, nothing to fill in, no streak that can break.
Android in final stages iOS to follow Local-first, no account
01 The problem
The yoghurt has been sitting behind the milk for two weeks. Bought, put away, out of sight, out of mind — until the smell brings it back.
And the routine you decided on rarely fails for lack of intent. It fails because at the moment that mattered, nothing was there to set it off.
Habit trackers rarely fix that, because they ask you to remember them — the exact thing that isn't working reliably right now. A note on the fridge gets closer, because it hangs where your hand goes. It just can't count anything.
Permy puts the anchor where the action happens.
The anchor hangs on the fridge door, not on your willpower.
02 How it works
A Permy tag goes where the action happens: on the fridge door, on the milk carton, on the medicine cabinet, on the door frame. It needs no power, no connection and no maintenance.
Hold your phone against it for a moment. A vibration confirms it landed. No app to open, nothing to type, nothing to dismiss.
The tag knows what it does: count along, count down, trigger or block. The app stays in the background, where it belongs.
03 One system, four applications
What a tag does is written on the tag — not in a setting you have to remember. A new place, a new tag, done.
One tap when you open it, and Permy counts the shelf life down. Your pantry list doesn't say “opened Sept 8”, it says “4 days left” — the answer you actually need standing in front of an open fridge.
shelf life set per item · a labelled tag creates a new entry without anything being programmed
Permy draws no chain and no percentage, but growth rings. Dense weeks grow wide, thin weeks stay narrow. A narrow ring is a dry year — information, not a mark against you.
several habits at once · each gets its own band in the same ring
The tag by your front door starts the timer, adds to the shopping list, or shows the short list for heading out — keys, charger, whatever you put there. The tag on the bathroom cabinet sets the clock. The durations are yours.
timer · shopping list · reminder list · your own webhooks
One tap blocks the loud apps, a second lifts it. Open a blocked app anyway and you land back on the home screen, with a short note that clears itself. No password, no penalty time: an interruption is enough to break the reflex.
block list is yours to choose · a manual switch as a release valve when the tag isn't within reach
04 What you get
Permy isn't just an app download. A tracker that stays on the shelf because the tags never got labelled would have helped nobody — which is why the setup is part of it.
Android is in its final stages and goes to release next. iOS follows. Core features run without an account and without a connection.
A set of NFC tags, prepared for your places. No battery, no maintenance, sturdy enough for the fridge door and the door frame.
The first hour decides whether a system sticks. I go through your places with you, we stick the tags where you actually pass them, and we set shelf lives and timers to your life — not to defaults.
Permy will be a subscription for the app and a one-off purchase for the tag sets. The numbers aren't fixed yet. Everyone on the waitlist hears them first — and pays no more than what applies at launch.
No streaks. No blame. Just anchors.
05 The Permy principle
Object impermanence, time blindness, shame avoidance — most apps treat these as user error to be overwritten with enough motivation. For Permy they are design parameters.
A streak knows exactly two states: intact or broken. Miss once and you are shown a zero — and many never open the app again. Not out of laziness, but because the number shames, and shame makes coming back expensive.
Tree rings tell it differently. A narrow ring is a dry year, not a failure. The tree keeps growing, and the narrow part stays visible — it just isn't judged.
So there are no points in Permy, no badges, no scoring. The rings show what was — dense, thin, with gaps — and leave the reading to you. The anchor hangs on the fridge door, not on your willpower.
06 Proof
Permy isn't public yet — so there are no user numbers to show, and I'm not inventing any. What there is: decisions you can see in the product. For every one of them, the other road was the easier one.
The accent colour isn't tied to any state anywhere in the app. There is no red for “overdue” and no green for “done”. States differ by opacity alone. This rule existed before the first line of code and shaped every view that came after.
The order is fixed: catch double taps, vibrate, write, then everything else. The vibration comes deliberately after the double-tap check — otherwise it vibrates twice when you leave the phone resting a moment longer.
What you tap is written on the device before anything touches the network. If a connection drops, nothing rolls back and nothing is lost. Core features need neither account nor connection.
The first version only laid an explanation over the blocked app — loading apps pushed in front of it. The obvious answer would have been a hard lock. Instead Permy returns you to the home screen and explains itself briefly. An interruption, not a cage.
These numbers say the engineering holds. They don't yet say how Permy feels after months of real life — only the first round will. That's why it's small.
07 Data
Local-first isn't a footnote in Permy, it's the architecture. What you tap is nobody else's business — mine included.
No account for the core features. No server that knows your habits.
Rings, countdowns and readings are produced on the phone, offline.
Export any time, in an open format. Your rings are yours — including when you leave.
08 Early access
Android goes to release next, and the first round stays small — because setup involves a person, and a person doesn't scale. Everyone on the list gets in first — and gets their first tag set free.
You're on.
You'll hear from me when it starts — not before.
Rather ask first? Write to me directly: dennis.schoener@gmail.com