Live streak tracking
A counter that ticks every second since your last hit. The simplest feature in the app, the most-used for a reason.
Most quit apps show you "Day 4." Nixd shows you "4 days, 7 hours, 22 minutes, 18 seconds." Every time you open the app, the number has moved. The continuity makes the win feel like a thing you're actively earning instead of a static counter you check.
How it works
When you finish onboarding, Nixd records the moment you quit. The home screen reads that moment and renders the live difference, updating once a second while it's on screen.
When you put the app away, the counter stops drawing. When you come back, it picks up from the current time. No background process, no battery cost, no drift — the math is against a single authoritative timestamp every time.
Why a live counter (instead of just "Day N")
The decision to render second-by-second instead of day-grain comes down to two design intuitions:
- Continuous progress is more motivating than discrete progress in the early window. Day 2 stretches across a long span of clean time during which the number doesn't move. If you check the app at 9am and again at 6pm, day-grain shows the same number both times. Live shows you 9 hours of progress you've made in between. That's not a placebo; it's the difference between a counter and a witness.
- The win is real time, not just real days. Saying "I haven't vaped today" is a softer commitment than "I haven't vaped in 7 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes." The longer number is harder to throw away. That's the whole point.
For 90+ day veterans, live-to-the-second matters less; the pride is more durable and the counter becomes background. For users in the 0–30 day window — which is when 80% of relapses happen — it's a small daily anchor.
Streak and slips
A slip doesn't reset your streak by default. You can log it (the data stays honest) without losing the "I'm on day 14" framing. This is a deliberate departure from most quit apps, which use a Day 0 reset as a motivational stick.
The reasoning: in cessation research, the largest single predictor of relapse-from-slip is the user's framing of the slip. A slip framed as "this is information about a trigger I missed" → 60% recover within 24 hours. A slip framed as "I ruined it, might as well buy another pod" → 80% relapse fully. The Day 0 reset reinforces the second framing. Nixd refuses to.
You can choose to reset the streak from Settings if you want a fresh-start framing. We won't stop you. The default just isn't shame.
In the app
The streak hero is the top section of the home tab. It's visually weighted: large numerics, breathing aurora behind, subtle pulse to draw the eye. The aurora doesn't change with tier today — it's the same brand palette regardless of how many days you have — though we may change that in the future.
On Apple Watch (when we ship the watch app), the streak is a complication option. Glance at your wrist; see the streak. Doesn't require opening anything.
What gets tracked alongside the streak
- Money saved — calculated from your reported daily spend, ticking in real time
- 19 health milestones — unlock as you hit each one
- Mood and wins log — quick check-ins, optional
- Slip log — separate from streak, kept for honesty
A note on Apple Watch
The watch app isn't shipped yet. Streak on the watch is high-leverage and we're aware. The design is sketched; the shipping date isn't. If you want to know when it lands, email us.
FAQ
Why does live-to-the-second matter? Isn't a daily count enough? +
Daily counts collapse a continuous achievement into a discrete number that only changes once every 24 hours. The early days of a quit are when motivation is most fragile, and seeing 'Day 2' for 24 hours can feel static. A live counter keeps a small, continuous sense of progress in the foreground — every time you check the app, the number has moved. It's a small psychological lever, but it's the right size for the early-quit window.
Does the streak run out my battery? +
No. The counter updates the screen efficiently when it's visible, doesn't run any background process, and stops updating when you put the app away. No CPU drain, no network load.
What happens to the streak if I slip? +
By default, nothing — you log a slip without resetting your streak counter. The app tracks the slip separately so your data is honest, but doesn't reset you to day zero. The reasoning: research shows that 'I'm on day 14' is a stronger psychological commitment than 'I'm starting over from day 0.' Reset-shaming is a relapse trigger, not a recovery aid.
Can I reset the streak manually if I want to? +
Yes. Settings → Plan → Reset streak. It's behind a confirmation because most slips don't need a reset.
What if I quit, used a vape once, then quit again? Do I count from the second quit? +
Your call. Most people keep their original quit date and log the slip; some prefer a fresh start. The app supports both. The data shows the original-date approach has slightly better long-term outcomes, probably because it preserves the sunk-cost / continuity feeling.
Is the timer accurate to the second across timezone changes? +
Yes. Streak math runs against UTC timestamps, so flying from NYC to Tokyo doesn't shift your streak. The local-time display follows your phone's timezone.
