How Offhours checks a task before apps return

· 3 min read

With Offhours Pro, Zen or a schedule can wait for up to three tasks before apps return. Offhours is still in development, so this describes the app as it is being built.

Why a task, and why check it

A block that ends at a set time gives your apps back at that time, whatever you did. A task links their return to something you decided on earlier, such as making your bed before you open your feeds.

For most tasks, finishing takes more than a tap from bed. The checks are there to raise the effort. They can’t prove anything. You can make the bed, photograph it and unmake it, and the task still counts.

Photo tasks

Filling a glass of water, making your bed, stepping outside for daylight, opening a book, preparing breakfast, clearing a surface and clearing the sink are checked by photo. You take the picture with Offhours’ own camera. There is no way to choose one from your photo library, which rules out yesterday’s picture.

The first time, Offhours asks your permission to send task photos to Anthropic. An AI model from Anthropic then looks at the picture and the task and answers pass, fail or unclear. It is told to watch for a photo of a screen or of a printed picture. A near-copy of a photo you already used for that task comes back as unclear.

A pass ticks the task. A fail offers a retake and nothing else, because a way out after a fail would make failing on purpose the easiest route.

The model can be wrong. We haven’t yet built the labeled test set that would tell us how often. Offhours deletes its copy of the photo once a result is recorded, and Anthropic’s API normally keeps its copy for up to 30 days.

Apple Health tasks

Reaching 1,000 steps, working out and meditating for five minutes are read from Apple Health on your iPhone. No photo and no server are involved. For a schedule, only what happened since the block started counts, so a morning workout doesn’t count for a schedule that starts at 14:00. For Zen, the whole day you started it counts. A workout of any length counts.

If you have fallen short, for example 340 of 1,000 steps, the only option is Check again.

Exercises in the app

Writing three sentences in your journal, adding three items to the day’s plan, breathing for two minutes and stretching for two minutes all happen inside Offhours, so doing them is the check. The motion sensors check the last two. The breathing asks you to keep the phone still, and the stretch runs only while the phone lies face down. What you write stays on your iPhone.

Tasks on your own word

Showering, taking medication or vitamins, and tasks you write yourself without a timer have no check. You mark them done. Medication used to be a photo task. We changed that because a picture of a pill bottle proves little and sends a medication label to a server.

When a check can’t run

Your access to your own phone shouldn’t depend on our server being up at 06:00. So when a check can’t run, the task’s page offers Mark done without verification.

On a photo task, it appears straight away if you are signed out, if you have refused camera access, if the camera can’t open, or if you haven’t allowed photo sharing. It appears when a check takes longer than ten seconds. It also appears after two attempts end in an error or an unclear result.

On a Health task, it appears when Health has no reading. Apple doesn’t tell an app when read access has been denied, and to the app the data simply doesn’t exist. Offhours can’t tell “not done” from “not shared”, so it offers Check again (Try again when there is no step data) and the way out together.

This leaves a gap on purpose. If you turn off photo sharing, every photo task can be marked done without a picture.

How unverified tasks are recorded

A task marked done this way never ticks silently: you have to choose that button. It is recorded on your iPhone as unverified, and that record isn’t sent anywhere.

An unverified task counts like any other. Apps return, and the day counts toward your streak. The app doesn’t show the record anywhere yet.

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