How Dash works — grids, goals and nags in an hourly habit tracker

Dash

How a grid works

One box, one tap. Everything else is a setting.

A grid is a name, a colour, a row of boxes and a list of things to put in one. Three shapes cover everything.

An hourly grid, Breaks: a box for each hour from 09 to 18, most filled, one crossed, the current hour outlined

HourlyOne box per hour. The hour you're in is outlined; an hour you let go by is crossed, and stays crossed.

An open-ended grid, Liquids: six drinks logged as boxes with their sizes, and one empty box for the next

Open-endedBoxes appear as you log, plus one spare, so there's always somewhere to put the next one.

A fixed grid, Fruit & Veg: seven boxes, five filled, two spare

FixedA set number of boxes, filled in any order. Five a day, four pills, six sets of physio.

A tick, or an amount

A box is a plain tick, or a number in the grid's unit — ml, minutes, reps, kcal. Each option knows its size (a pint is 568 ml, a run is 20 minutes), so one tap logs the amount, and there's an Other row for the one that isn't on the list. An option can also stand for several — your usual breakfast, a circuit of three exercises — and one tap logs the lot.

Starter grids

Nobody wants to type twenty exercise names in, so Dash ships grids ready to go — movement, breaks, physio, cardio, liquids, meds, fruit & veg, calories, pets — and every one of them is yours to rename and reshape.

The options sheet for Liquids: eight drink sizes from a wine glass at 175 ml to a pint at 568 ml, each with an icon — Liquids. Every size is a tap, and the total is in litres because the goal is.

The options sheet for an hourly box: Move — Upper at 16:00, six exercises with Shoulder taps selected — An hourly box. Pick what it was; the box takes the icon.

The Options pane of a grid's settings: the list of options with icons and sizes, and which one a bare tap logs — A grid's options: name, icon, size, and which one a hold logs.

The Start from sheet listing starter grids: Move — Upper, Move — Lower, Move — Mobility, Breaks, Physio and more, each with a one-line description — Start from a preset, then rename, recolour and reshape it.

Goals, runs and the week beside every row

A floor, a ceiling, or a range between them.

Most goals are a floor: eight of the fifteen hours, two litres, thirty minutes. Some are a ceiling: under 2,000 kcal, no more than three coffees. Some are both, and the row celebrates when you get into the range and winces if you go over.

The Trends pane for Liquids: today 2.63 of 2 L, a 2-day run, and a four-week grid of days coloured by how much was logged — Trends: the last four weeks as a heatmap, which options you use, and which hours.

The Settings pane for a grid: name, colour, type, hours, unit and goals — A grid's settings: a floor, a ceiling, or both — and different on different days if you want.

The grids list: each grid with its shape, hours, goal and nag count — The grids list: shape, hours, goal and rules at a glance.

Nags and flashes

It nags you — but only if you ask it to.

Two ways a grid speaks up, and they belong to different things. A nag is a tone in the app or a notification, and it is yours: it lives on the device you set it on, so the iPad on the desk can chime while the phone in your pocket stays quiet. A flash is the box itself pulsing — slowly when the window opens, faster as it runs out — and it belongs to the grid: it travels with it to every device that shows it, and to anyone you share it with, so every screen agrees about which box is waving at you.

A grid's Nags pane: the nags set on this device — A grid's Nags pane — these are yours, on this device. The flash is set once, in the grid's own Settings, and goes wherever the grid does.

The Breaks grid row with a flash running: the current hour's box pulsing red because nothing has been logged for over an hour — A flash, live: nothing logged for two and a half hours, and the box pulses until you stand up.

On the desk

Always on. Never in the way.

An iPad on a stand spends most of the day being ignored, and Dash is built for that. After five minutes with no touch the wall dims. After fifteen it gives way to the sleep face: black, the time, one line per grid, drifting to a new spot every few minutes so nothing burns in. It still keeps score — a line per grid, today's tally — and it still flashes, so you can see from the doorway which grid wants you.

The Dash sleep face on an iPad: a black screen with the time and one line per grid, sitting off-centre — The sleep face. Touch anywhere and the wall comes back.