The short version
- A work timer with no fixed block length. You set the length.
- Four presets to start from. Every setting under them can be changed on its own.
- On Android, the cue is built to arrive even with the screen off. There is a self-test that proves it.
- No account. No Vitark server. Nothing is uploaded unless you turn sync on.
- No streaks, scores or red badges. Nothing to keep up.
- Phone and browser stay in step, once paired.
- Free. Early. Android and browser today.
How long a block lasts
Most timers give everybody twenty-five minutes. That number came from a kitchen timer in the 1980s. It was never measured against anything.
Den has no fixed interval. You pick a way of working, and that sets a starting length. You can change it whenever you like.
Den measures nothing except the clock and your own taps.
Four ways of working
These are starting points, not categories. Every setting underneath is adjustable on its own. Nothing you pick is stored as a fact about you.
Short blocks. Cues that vary. A firm end.
Long blocks. Cues that never change. An end you are warned about, and can run past if you want to.
The same ritual every time, around work that changes.
One length. One cue. Everything above switched off.
Making sure the cue arrives
Every other feature is worthless if a cue goes missing without saying so.
On Android, Den runs a foreground service with a live countdown in it. It also sets an exact alarm alongside. Between them, the cue survives Doze and survives the app being killed.
The self-test
There is a test you can run. Lock your phone and put it down. Den cues you sixty seconds later.
It reports pass or fail plainly. If it fails, it names the setting that stopped it. That includes the vendor-specific battery settings some phones use to stop background apps.
Tested on a Pixel 10 Pro XL. The cue fired through Doze with the screen locked.
Keeping track of several things
Threads
A thread is a commitment of time, like an hour a day of something. Den compares the hours a thread asks for against the hours you have actually recorded, then shows you the arithmetic.
Hard dates
A hard date is something fixed, like a return or a flight. Den works out the day it has to start. It uses the hours left over after your threads have taken theirs.
Coming up
Some things have to happen before another thing can. A conference is the usual example. Those earlier things can have dates of their own, and Den says so when they do. Something that fits overall can still be at risk.
There is no ordering, no percent complete, and no deadline on a thread. A thread cannot be late.
What happens to your data
- No account, and no Vitark server. Nothing is uploaded anywhere unless you turn sync on.
- Export is plain files. Ordinary JSON with documented
field names, a table you can open in a spreadsheet, and a
SHA-256manifest for checking nothing has been altered. If Den disappeared tomorrow, the folder would still be readable in a text editor. - Sync is optional, and encrypted. Turn it on and your list travels between your own devices, through relays you choose. Those relays hold something they cannot read.
- Your settings never travel. How you have Den set up stays on the device, whatever else you switch on.
- Your keys come from twelve words. On Android you can connect an identity you already have, or make one. Den keeps only the keys it needs, worked out from those words, and never the words themselves. Two phones that connect the same identity are in step with each other without anything being paired.
- A browser is paired, not told your words. The browser shows six characters. You type them on the phone, and the phone sends across the one key the browser needs. Then both screens show the same six digits for you to check. If they do not match, somebody else answered, and nothing is accepted.
Nothing is scanned at any point. Den has no camera permission, so it cannot read a code off a screen, and six characters are cheaper than a permission that would need explaining for ever afterwards.
What Den cannot see
Den asks for no permission to see which other apps you run. It asks for no location, no camera and no microphone. It cannot know what else is on your screen, and it does not ask.
What Den does not do
- No streaks, points, levels or scores. Nothing accumulates, so there is never a run to protect.
- No due-date badges, and no red. The word overdue appears nowhere in it.
- It is not a website blocker. Nothing is ever locked away from you.
- It is not a task manager. Three states, and a shortlist that stops at three.
- It is not a coach. No encouragement, and no personified assistant.
- It is not a medical device. Den does not diagnose, screen, treat or monitor anything. It contains no questionnaire or assessment of any kind, and makes no claim about any condition.
Getting Den
Den is free. There is nothing to pay for, and nothing to sign up to.
In a browser
The web version is a working surface for your list. It has the launchpad, the runway, threads and dates. Everything stays in that browser, on that device.
Cues need the phone. A browser tab cannot wake you, and the web version does not pretend otherwise.
Once paired, the two stay in step: when the app comes back to the front, a few seconds after you change something, and while a browser tab is open. There is no connection held open in the background on your phone.
On Android
Den is not on Google Play yet, so it installs directly. Your phone will ask you once whether to permit an install from the browser. That prompt is Android doing its job. You can turn the permission off again afterwards.
Almost everyone wants arm64-v8a. It fits essentially every phone sold since about 2017. The other two are for older 32-bit hardware and for emulators.
- vitark-den-0.3.0-arm64-v8a.apk b6064c6ce32faef4b8536fc422bb98e4104bee1eaa229bac724a0f36b661be62
- vitark-den-0.3.0-armeabi-v7a.apk 9ce17bdb677764f204ab5e4619499f6b3d04354877c1ceaae9d849eab38eef1b
- vitark-den-0.3.0-x86_64.apk 0de1d39bb9d1ea2ab010381032d3e739f9c2bbd20f9d4064c4ea14e1f5241b71
The long strings are SHA-256 sums of the files themselves. Running
shasum -a 256 <file> should print the same thing. There
is a plain list of them too.
What the download asks for
The permissions are checked against the release file before it is published, not against a manifest someone remembers writing.
Present: vibration, notifications, wake lock, a foreground service, an exact alarm, network access for sync, and the biometric prompt. That last one is what lets your phone refuse to unlock your keys without your fingerprint.
Absent, and verified absent: app-usage access, the package list, location, microphone, camera, logs, contacts, external storage, and drawing over other apps.
What works today
This is an early build, version 0.3.0. It is not on any store yet. Android and the browser are the two you can get above. The iOS build compiles and runs in the simulator.
In this build you set the block length yourself. Den does not yet work a length out from your own history. That is the next phase of work, and it is not in the version you can download. Rather than show a number and let it look calculated, Den leaves it as a number you chose, and every record it writes says so.
Everything else on this page is here: the launchpad, the two-minute door, the runway, the three-state list, break, threads, hard dates, and the self-test.
Den is part of the Vitark suite, alongside Still and Train.