Show HN: Sober Ringtones – Cringe-free ringtones for people who hate ringtones (sober-ringtones.wize.io)
Hey HN,
fed up with cringy stock ringtones on my new phones, a few months ago I decided to "compose" my own ringtone for calls and notifications. It had to be minimal, no bells and whistles, low tones.
The result was nothing fancy, but that's exactly what I was looking for. I have been using it ever since and I'm pretty happy with it.
So after some time I decided to make a few more variants and share them online for other people who hate ringtones that sound like overblown symphonies, cheap disco hits or overly catchy jingles.
Would love to know if anyone is interested in this or if you're still stuck that default Samsung ringtone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzdDqpGt6A) ;)
I've been using 102, btw.
27 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 77.2 ms ] threadThat said, these ring tones are better than most.
Long story short: I once did a project where I trained cows and attached mobile phones to them to literally call them to come to the milkingrobot. But what kind of ringtone do you pick for a cow? Ended up with a 90s/00s style classic telephone ringtone.
Then you fall into the trap of making them a bit more original, and then a bit more, and then a bit more. But that would defeat the initial purpose of the project.
Hahaha, I'm interested in the project with the cows, did you manage to train them? Anyways yes, the 90s style classic phone ringtone is an all time classic and used it for many years as a ringtone
Plus different people hear different tones differently,
and different tones or patterns are better in different environments. An otherwise ideal sound might be very difficult to hear in someone's work environment, and some other sound that is functionally equivalent but just at a different pitch or with a different speed of repeating pattern or pulse would stand out much better.
There's lots of reasons for a wide variety that are hard practical functional and not expressing individual style.
A long time ago on a Treo my favorite was a bird chirp, because it was a natural sound that carried (for the same reason it carries for actual birds) but mostly because it clearly contrasts from all the artificial sounds I was surrounded by. It's nothing like any other beeper from a microwave or dead battery or open fridge or anyone else's phone for that matter.
I think these ringtones (especially 101 and 102) are more for people who almost always have their phone on silent and when they decide to turn on their ringtone they still want something very subtle
Regardless, great tones! I'll use the quite ones on for unknown numbers :)
Thanks!
Anyways happy to know it fixed itself :D
I'm using 102, but only because 101 is too "loud" for my pixel 7a. It sounds great on my headphones, but the low frequencies are too much for the tiny pixel speakers. So after going over 35% volume, the ringtone distorts heavily for a fraction of a second.
Not my recording but you can hear the same phone here: https://youtu.be/XczrL9Kk6r4?start=207
I’m pretty deaf and could hear this anywhere. Plus it meant I was able to distinguish my phone over other people’s.
Now I just have an Apple Watch which vibrates silently.
Phones should be set to vibrate. If it's on your person, or near to hand, that's all you need, and nobody else has to know.
Some people do need a sound -- perhaps things are urgent, or they leave their phone across the room. If so, you want a sound that's loud. It doesn't need to be fancy, but it does need to draw attention.
But it’s so dang hard to install a custom ringtone. I thought someday Apple would provide an api, but nope.
Adding the ringtone on iOS is a pain in the ass, I was thinking to add a step by step guide right on the website... Apple provides a guide in their support articles (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692), it's not difficult but I don't understand the reason honestly. It should be simple with a .m4a file from the Music app, but you need the computer