The stand reminder app I wanted didn't exist. So I built it.

Like most people who work at a desk, I started having back pain. Nothing dramatic, just that dull ache in my lower back around 3pm. Stiff shoulders. That foggy feeling after lunch. I figured I needed a better chair.

The chair rabbit hole

So I bought one. A nice ergonomic office chair. Adjustable lumbar support, armrests, the whole thing. It helped for a week. Then the pain came back.

I bought another one. More expensive this time. Mesh back, fancy tilt mechanism. Same story. Better for a few days, then back to square one.

At some point, I even tried one of those high-end ergonomic chairs. You know, the ones that cost more than a laptop. I thought maybe I just hadn't spent enough money on the problem. Turns out, you can't buy your way out of sitting eight hours a day.

The chair wasn't the problem. Sitting was.

The real issue

I started reading about it. Articles, studies, those YouTube videos about "sitting is the new smoking." And it clicked. We're not designed to be this sedentary. For most of human history, people moved. Now we sit in cars, sit at desks, sit on couches. Our bodies haven't adapted.

The solution wasn't a better chair. It was standing up. Regularly. Ideally every 30 minutes, according to most of what I read. Not for long, just a minute or two. Enough to get your blood flowing and reset your posture.

Simple enough, right? Except I'd forget. Every time. I'd get into a coding session and three hours would go by without me moving. That's when I started looking for an app to remind me.

Everything I tried was wrong

The first app I downloaded wanted to track my steps, sync with my Apple Watch, and show me weekly progress charts. I just wanted a timer. I uninstalled it after ten minutes.

The second one had this aggressive full-screen overlay that locked my computer until I confirmed I was standing. Maybe that works for some people. For me, it just made me angry. I was on a call with a client once when it triggered. My entire screen went black in the middle of sharing my screen. I had to awkwardly explain what just happened. Embarrassing doesn't cover it.

Another one required an account. An account! To remind me to stand. No thanks.

I kept searching. Some apps looked like they were designed in 2008. Others wanted a subscription, five bucks a month for a timer. At some point I gave up and just used my phone's alarm. It worked, but it was clunky. I had to dismiss it every time, and it couldn't tell if I'd already stepped away.

Building my own

I'm a developer, so at some point I thought, how hard can this be? A menu bar icon, a timer, a notification. That's all I need.

I built the first version in a weekend. And I used it. For real. Every day at my desk.

The first week, I found problems. The timer didn't pause when my Mac went to sleep. Notifications piled up if I was away for lunch. The settings were buried three clicks deep. So I fixed those things. Then I added idle detection, so the timer pauses when you step away and resets when you come back. Then work hours, so it doesn't bother you on weekends. Then a history view, because I got curious about how often I actually stood.

Before I knew it, I had a real app. One that did exactly what I wanted. It reminded me to stand, then got out of my way.

Sharing it

A friend saw it on my Mac and asked if he could use it. Then another friend. Then someone suggested I put it on the App Store. I wasn't sure at first. There are already so many reminder apps. But the ones I'd tried had all frustrated me. Maybe I wasn't alone.

So here it is. Standro. A stand reminder for Mac. That's really all it is.

No subscriptions. You pay once and it's yours. I hate subscription apps for simple tools like this. Your timer shouldn't stop working because you forgot to renew. It just lives on your Mac, offline, doing its job.

As someone who spends all day at a desk, Standro has helped me more than any chair ever did. I hope it helps you too.