Giving friends custom text buzzes based on Morse code

(liquidbrain.net)

49 points | by evakhoury 1 day ago

11 comments

  • PcChip 4 hours ago
    I love this feature - I have separate vibration patterns for my wife and my girlfriend, so I can easily tell if a text is from an important person without taking it out of my pocket (and I refuse to wear a watch)

    Your idea sounds cool, but then I’d have to learn Morse code which doesn’t sound fun to me

    • rustyminnow 4 hours ago
      Here's a fun game to learn morse code ... https://alexvscoding.itch.io/morse

      I'd highly recommend even if your goal is just to have fun, and not to "learn morse code".

      Great for your kids, and your other kids too!

    • noman-land 4 hours ago
      Hope your lawyer has a special buzz as well.
      • fennecbutt 4 hours ago
        They're probably open and felt the need to mention it specifically. I know people like that as well.
        • forgotmypw17 2 hours ago
          Would you feel the same thing about "the need to mention it specifically" if they had mentioned their boyfriend?

          Your phrasing reminded me of what casual mentions of a same-sex partners used to elicit, when heteronormativity was more prevalent.

    • cogogo 4 hours ago
      My wife’s vibration pattern for a call is SOS in morse. No side-piece for me though. Very happily married, just know if she calls it is important.
      • oskciwnxkwndi 3 hours ago
        > Very happily married,

        How relevant. Sounds oddly like a “gotcha” of sorts; still, I can’t help but wonder how happily married you really are considering you felt the need to bring it up entirely unprompted in an otherwise entirely unrelated note.

        • cogogo 3 hours ago
          It’s a joke. Parent mentioned wife and girlfriend.
          • PcChip 40 minutes ago
            I don't get the joke

            very happily married here too

            • ThePinion 21 minutes ago
              My open friend said the same thing before his wife left him for the boyfriend and took his house. Good times.
    • waltbosz 4 hours ago
      Great use of polyhaptic notifications.
  • pentamassiv 1 hour ago
    LLMs are surprisingly good at reading Morse code. Some time ago I pranked my flatmate. I installed a wifi switch in the wall and then wrote a script to convert text to Morse code and send the code with a slight delay through his lamp. I also built a website to do some legend-building to make him believe a ghost is haunting our apartment. He sent a video of the flickering lamp to chatGPT and it correctly deciphered it. We had a good laugh when I revealed the prank to him.
    • PcChip 34 minutes ago
      you put some real effort into that, I respect it!
  • _whiteCaps_ 4 hours ago
    https://www.youtube.com/@alexjh47/podcasts

    I publish CBC and BBC News Feeds in Morse Code in various speeds if you're looking for another way to learn Morse Code.

  • ragmondo 5 hours ago
    Many many many years ago, I wrote an android app that allowed you to set the ringtone of the device you were ringing for that call (yes they had to have the app installed etc etc, and had given you permission to do it). I did release it but the market problem I had was that iPhone's ringtones were not something a client app could change, let alone in the background and even less so without direct permission of the user.

    So anyway, if you want to do something like that, it's back to android I'm afraid. Don't worry, there's no patent and there's prior art (i.e. my usage). FWIW - the closest patent to it was made by a TV manufacturer that would allow you to find the remote control by playing a noise etc directed by the TV !

  • aorist 5 hours ago
    We’ve come full circle: the iconic Nokia default SMS ringtone is S-M-S in morse code, and the “Ascending” ringtone spells CONNECTING PEOPLE
  • taylor-tg 5 hours ago
    Pretty clever! Not a bad way to passively learn Morse code too.

    iOS supports having notification sounds synchronized with the haptics; I wonder if generating the text tones as audio files and assigning those would have been an easier approach.

    Just have to use the share sheet on an audio file and choose "Use as ringtone". Shortcuts/Automator might even be able to make this automagic.

  • dewey 3 hours ago
  • tjoff 5 hours ago
    Would be cool to buzz the message itself in morse code, though todays buzzers are so weak I don't think I'd be able to make it out (if I knew morse code, that is).

    But would be cool with a separate buzzer of sorts where you get the normal buzzer notification and then hold a finger somewhere specific and get details that way.

  • natch 4 hours ago
    I do this with syllable counts for my main contacts full names. Too lazy to learn morse code, and syllables work great except when there’s overlap (two people with same counts).
  • klaff 4 hours ago
    Great idea! I DO know Morse code and it would be nice for it to be useful.