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cjflog | on: Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)
I made Beacon, a mobile app for answering: “which of my friends is free to talk right now?” It’s basically a one-to-many phone call that only one person can answer. Send a beacon to a group, and everyone gets rung at the same time. The first person who answers gets connected for a 1-1 call, and for everyone else the signal drops silently. No missed-calls or pressure to answer. Works pretty well given most people keep their phones on silent (and there are in-app settings for quiet hours too).

It works best if you're able to join with at least four people you don't speak with as much as you'd like. I have a couple dozen connections on the app now, and it feels like magic to me. Would love feedback from both introverts and extroverts who still like phone calls, or wish they had more of them:

iOS TestFlight access here -> https://trybeacon.chat/

Android also in beta here -> https://appdistribution.firebase.dev/i/afe3c44d8443c4c0

ggitelson | parent | next
Very interesting. Part of my says that if it rung and I wasn't the first to answer, I would feel bad. At the same time, I like the idea of being able to reach out and just say "I feel like talking to someone". I would imagine that it is super interesting for people with depression or addiction who could add their support group too.
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sejje | parent | next
I hope you're still checking comments: I had an idea for a way your app can really have some impact, maybe.

In short, your app, but for an elderly grandmother. She gets lonely, but the burden of answering gets spread across the family.

I think there's a real need for this. I'm pretty sure I read a write-up here by a guy who implemented something similar for his mother with dementia. She would call up incessantly.

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theapiartist | parent | next
This is an interesting idea, the no missed calls or notification part is also very interesting, never thought something like that was possible.
telesilla | parent | next
I'd love it if you can also fix the problem of timezones. So many of my friends are oceans-apart and we rarely rarely meet and talk as a group anymore. Maybe some kind of asynchronous option?
cjflog | root | parent | next
The idea is to just send a beacon whenever you're free and maybe you'll catch friends in the wildly different timezones from time to time.

I sometimes send beacons on morning commutes. Way too early for normal social calls but will sometimes catch people a few timezones east on a lunch break or something.

d1sxeyes | root | parent
You can’t really have an asynchronous phone call though…
telesilla | root | parent
Right, more asynchronous message leaving. But, that's Instagram.
conrs | parent | next
This is an interesting idea. I'm building https://tend2thrive.com - I could see an interesting collaboration here. Always looking for ways to re-engage your network without it feeling heavy.
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tim-projects | parent | next
This makes me think of MSN,AOL or ICQ which had an online status and notification system.

Why did that go away with modern messaging? WhatsApp and signal don't have it. Sms? Not sure. I think Facebook messenger does.

I can remember this was an important feature that everyone actively used.

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wind111 | parent | next
Wow, this is cool idea! it leads to building a relationship more!
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jasondigitized | parent | next
Curious what the stack looks like. Are you doing all the heavy lifting yourself with WebRTC or using something like LiveKit?
aliayaz112 | parent | next
Sounds fun and idea is interesting
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boaztheostrich | parent | next
Ooh this is such a cool idea.
gladlabs | parent | next
what if I don't answer quickly enough but do want to talk :(
yreg | root | parent | next
You fire off a new beacon.
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andrewrn | parent | next
Super neat concept. One super low-lift way to improve its reception: change the styling of the landing page to not be blatant AI slop.
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Paarthmj | parent
love the idea, would love a messaging version
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