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A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch

https://github.com/tldev/posturr
181•dnw•2h ago

Comments

publicdebates•1h ago
I would pay $10 for this.
xfactorial•1h ago
I think the idea is wonderful, but a not-audited application that uses things like the camera is a “no go” for me.

Get it notorized and ask for some money! I will gladly pay it (and I hope others will do it as well).

Awesome concept: ergonomics and/or posture monitoring is a market opportunity for heavy users.

xpasky•1h ago
It's literally a single .swift file. Ask your LLM to audit it.
micromacrofoot•1h ago
then I need to get someone to audit the LLM, which is considerably more difficult
StilesCrisis•55m ago
Do you expect this programmer is in cahoots with Anthropic?
tananaev•1h ago
Are you serious? It's open source. And there's less than 1000 lines total. Get Codex or Claude to review it if you're paranoid.
Alejandro9R•1h ago
The thing is that how do you know at the end of the day that the compiled binary hasn't been tampered with "extra code" besides what's in the repo?

I don't even think notarization gets rid of this problem neither, so the best you can do for this is compile it yourself. Maybe I'm wrong!

alexford1987•1h ago
Compiling it yourself is the best/only thing you can do if you really want to know what code went into a binary.
encom•1h ago
Go easy on the guy. Mac users are so used to overpaying for trivial functionality.
wizzwizz4•1h ago
While I disagree with you, thank you for sharing your decision-making process: you're probably not the only one who thinks this way.

In general, would you pay for a notorised build of free software, if you had use for that software, even if an un-notorised build or the source code were available?

IshKebab•1h ago
I seriously doubt that he actually would. And in that unlikely event he'd be in a miniscule minority. Not a good open source monetisation strategy.
alin23•1h ago
Notarization is mostly a glorified malware scan. There's no Apple engineer auditing what's being sent for notarization. Even clever malware can evade notarization scans and be distributed as a notarized binary, it has happened in the past [0]

There's no better way for auditing such an app than having the code easily available and looking through it, and compiling it yourself. Which is already the case here.

[0] https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/new-macsync-macos-stealer-...

burnerthrow008•54m ago
Your link says that Apple revoked the certificate used to sign the malware by the time the story was published.
tanelpoder•1h ago
Once launched, Posturr runs in the background and displays a brief "Claude Mode Active" notification.

I haven’t checked the code yet, but what does the “Claude Mode” mean? Is it a poor naming choice? It implies that the local app is somehow connected to Claude (?)

auslegung•1h ago
A codebase search for "claude" only has 1 hit in the code (the markdown that you referenced) and 4 commits which include the word in the commit message, or one commit includes .claude/ in the git ignore. See https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atldev%2Fposturr+claude&ty...

Same with a codebase search for "anthropic"

tjohnell•1h ago
Hi - this is the author. I can explain that, ha!

Right now I'm using a vision library to detect head height which was good enough. I went down a tangent where I hooked it up to my Claude Code instance to take a screen shot and have Claude Code assess how bad my slouch was. Claude would watch a folder for screen shots, read it in, and if it detected bad posture, write to a file the program was watching to adjust blur.

I did this weird work-around so I could use my Claude Code subscription as opposed to the API.

Anyways, it was too slow and Claude was a bad judge of slouchiness. Head height works well enough!

I'll clean this up.

tanelpoder•1h ago
Cool, thanks for the clarification. Indeed it's a good and practical idea for a small app. As other comments have said, (some) people might happily pay for this app.

I luckily won't need such feedback loop anymore, had some mild lower back pain show up over 10 years ago and bought a chair without a backrest that, after 3-4 weeks of struggling, trained me to sit up straight. Now I have some random cheap office chair with a backrest, but I rarely lean back to it. Funnily, I was going to give up using that "backrestless" chair after 2 weeks of inconvenience, but decided to give it one more week and then the magic happened :-) Mild lower back pain automatically gone.

hn8726•43m ago
Care to share an example of this backrestless chair? Is it like a regular chair just without the backrest, or has some other differences? Does it have armrests for example, and if not - does it bother you?
tanelpoder•33m ago
I went with an overkill approach at first (as I often do :-) and bought some expensive nicely designed "active chair" / stool that was adjustable high enough so that I could lean on it even when using my desk as a standing desk. It was interesting, but not a game changer at all for me. I don't use standing desks now at all.

But what I have now is this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002FL3LY4

Just don't assemble the backrest at first. If sitting up straight, I just lean wrists on my keyboard wristpad and part of forearms on the desk, no armrests needed either.

Edit: I still use my height-adjustable standing desk, but now it's value is that I could adjust it for the perfect height for my sitting-up-straight position (so no chair armrests needed) and it's been fixed at that height for the last 7 years...

manuelmoreale•30m ago
Not sure which one the parent was referring to but personalizing I've been using one of these for more than a decade at this point (I'm sitting on it right now) https://www.varierfurniture.com/en/products

The one I have does have a backrest but because of the way it's shaped you don't actually use it to slouch. It's more there to support when you lean back and want to take a break from typing or something like that.

amelius•1h ago
Why use a proprietary stack for building this when there is a far more capable open ecosystem available at your fingertips?

https://huggingface.co/models?other=human-pose-estimation

https://huggingface.co/models?other=3d-human-mesh-recovery

kazen44•1h ago
do any more open applications like this exist? The idea seems great
p0w3n3d•1h ago
Great, now I'll get sick eyes too

* laughs histerically

VadimPR•1h ago
How can you tell if a short person is slouching? Or a tall person?
kccqzy•1h ago
If you assume a person’s chair height and desk height are both set optimally, then I guess the person’s height doesn’t matter for this detection.
gcanyon•54m ago
I'm not the author, but I assume it benchmarks the highest height of your head, blurs from there, and updates its baseline if you ever appear higher.

Meaning that the way to have "perfect posture" is never to sit up straight in the first place :-)

blauditore•1h ago
Does anyone ever reach a high level of productivity with correct posture? I can't.
hashmap•1h ago
if im not sitting on my right foot with left knee under my chin my thinking takes a hit, but i also have to constantly switch how im sitting so i dont get annoyed. its hard not to slouch/melt into whatever im sitting on and i think the only way to offset all that is the gym.
louthy•1h ago
Sure, but getting the right environment is a prerequisite. In my case it’s a Herman Miller Embody chair [1] that stops me getting into a bad position (it’s not impossible, it just encourages good posture).

[1] https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/products/seating/office-c...

esskay•59m ago
Totally a tangent here but it amazes me how a company as big as Herman Miller could screw a product page up so much by not even having a picture of the damn product.
hypeatei•54m ago
Something might be wrong with your client (ad-blocker, NoScript maybe?) because there a ton of pictures on that page.
esskay•45m ago
Ha, yep you're right. How bizarre, wasn't a browser ad block, it was adguard dns blocking a ton of tracking scripts needed to show the images.
StilesCrisis•38m ago
It's the first thing on the page. Your browser is doing something funky.
hexbin010•40m ago
The embodiment of overpriced and mediocre
eeixlk•1h ago
Satire i hope
Raed667•1h ago
I would love this but for detecting when I'm not wearing my glasses!
dhosek•1h ago
If I’m not wearing my glasses the screen blurs organically.
dmurray•1h ago
Doesn't the screen already go blurry when you're not wearing your glasses?
Raed667•52m ago
It's a spectrum I'm trying to avoid it getting that bad
ngruhn•48m ago
I think he's joking
Raed667•45m ago
I wish
jagged-chisel•1h ago
“If only the world had some way to remind be to wear my glasses … like going all blurry or something.”

I get you - but making it absurd is where my brain went immediately. >.<

jasonjmcghee•1h ago
I'm not sure how you can use a laptop with good posture. An external monitor at the right height seems like a necessity.

I'm also optimistic about monitors in the form of glasses- even less effort needed to set yourself up for perfect posture. But the sweet spot problem is still very much a thing from what I've seen- can't wait until it's normal for them to have eye tracking, foveated rendering and streaming, and be wireless.

duckruu•55m ago
My Apple Vision Pro has all that, and it’s perfect for posture when using a MacBook.
jasonjmcghee•47m ago
Yeah- this and the upcoming steam frame seem like the best options today.

There's something very attractive for me personally about the sunglasses form factor.

Safer in public, draws less attention, more portable, less headset fatigue, etc.

But obviously trading quality and features.

Also AVP is like $3k, steam frame will probably be $800+, xreal are like half that

MengerSponge•49m ago
My dog could, but a person with adult proportions probably can't. For long-term use, a stand+KB is the only solution I know of

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/86285180/the-roost-savi...

It's too bad that nobody on the Surface team has managed to crack this! I'd be much more interested in one if they had.

cosmic_cheese•8m ago
Yeah, most of my computer use is with a properly adjusted desk setup with external monitors and while it doesn’t bother me to use a laptop to jot down some notes or for a short study session, if I try to do “real” work at all I quickly become uncomfortable. A cheap folding laptop stand (which elevates the laptop enough that the middle of its screen is eye level) and wireless KB+mouse dramatically improves comfort (and productivity) but the tradeoff is that you need a table or other sizable, stable flat surface.

The exception is if there happens to be a reclined-position chair (IKEA POÄNG or similar) around; this gives back support and reduces neck craning enough to make longer sessions more viable, but it’s far from a given that this kind of seating will be available.

iammrpayments•1h ago
Staying in upright posture for too long is also not good for you.
PlatoIsADisease•1h ago
Anyone want to vibe code this to work on linux or M$
lcnmrn•48m ago
Install a pull up bar in your room. It will fix your back better than anything else.
winrid•47m ago
1 min plank in the morning is a big help too
avalys•47m ago
You can measure my productivity by how slouched I am.

Sitting up straight at my desk, chair locked, perfect posture? I’m doing nothing, maybe looking through System Preferences to change the system highlight color.

Sliding down in my chair like jelly, with my shoulders where my butt should be and my head resting on the lumbar support? I’m building the next iPhone and it’ll be done by 2 AM.

digitaltinfoil•44m ago
this is the way
collingreen•36m ago
This is how things get built for me as well. I have a standing desk and like using it occasionally but if you see me standing at it you can bet I'm doing something typical like emails or chat and not thinking deeply.
dgxyz•23m ago
My productivity is generally measured in how much time I sit on the porcelain thinking throne first.
jacobkranz•1m ago
Truer words have never been spoken. That and planning out your day & thinking through problems in the shower.
chongli•8m ago
My neck is screaming in empathetic pain for your future neck!
TheRealPomax•1m ago
Sounds like you're literally the target audience for this app.
aa_is_op•45m ago
Plz make a Windows version :)))
kneel•45m ago
This is cool, I built something similar a while back. I originally wanted the screen to dim when I slouched but I couldn't get access to dimming on OSX. I ended up just playing a noise when I slouched. It became so distracting I stopped using it.

The blurring of the screen is a much better idea.

incanus77•42m ago
Anyone else with progressive lenses just think "I already have this"?
iandanforth•34m ago
While this seems to detect posture fairly well, the screen blurring doesn't work for me despite allowing what appear to be the relevant permissions. (macOS 15.1)
wklm•8m ago
I had the exact same issue and have fixed it here: https://github.com/wklm/posturr
rdslw•30m ago
Congrats on the app.

I'm seeing that "great-ai-unlock" is happening. I see in last month a lot of new software being codeveloped with claude/codex/gemini/you-name it.

Before, it was too costly to do sth like the Posture app: here, you would have to know Swift and apple apis to write such tool. Would you be C# (very good) programmer with free weekend, and an idea: no cookie for ya.

These days, due to "great-ai-unlock" your skills can be easily transferred and used to cross platforms boundary and code such useful app in a weekend or so.

Jevons paradox is indeed working (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).

jama211•8m ago
Sounds like a good idea but “good posture” meaning being upright is just such an outdated and incorrect thing. Be comfortable, relax in your chairs, it’s fine.

A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch

https://github.com/tldev/posturr
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