A sketch lands
where a generic reminder doesn't.

Why a sketch beats a stock reminder

Generic habit reminders work for about two weeks. After that, your brain learns to filter the format — the "9pm: don't forget to read" notification becomes background noise alongside every other app's daily nudge. There's a known psychological term for this: habituation. Your nervous system stops responding to repeated identical signals because it's a basic survival mechanism.

Doodle Nudges break the habituation loop on purpose. They show up in the rarest visual format your phone delivers — a hand-drawn sketch from one specific person. The brain treats it as a fresh signal because it never sees the same drawing twice. And the personal-attention signal ("someone literally drew this for me, right now") is something stock reminders fundamentally can't replicate.

It looks gimmicky on paper. In practice, it's the feature beta users mention most often as the thing that kept them coming back.

How it works

1. 1

   Tap your partner's avatar, draw

   Native canvas, four colors, two brush sizes. The constraints are intentional — most doodles take 15–30 seconds. The point isn't artistic quality, so the tool stays out of the way.

2. 2

   Tap send

   The doodle is encrypted, posted, and delivered to your partner's device. They get a normal iOS push notification — but with the drawing as the notification image instead of a generic app icon.

3. 3

   It lands on their lock screen

   The doodle is visible immediately — no tap required. They can swipe to dismiss or tap to view full-size in the app, where every doodle from a partner is archived for 30 days.

When pairs use them most

Doodle Nudges have two modes — automatic (suggested by AI Streak Recovery) and on-demand. These are the situations on-demand sending shows up most:

• Morning wake-up

  Coffee cup at 6am. The most common opening doodle in beta.

• Pre-workout

  Running shoe before a planned run. Lower the activation energy.

• Partner at-risk

  When AI Streak Recovery flags their habit. Lower-stakes than a text.

• Milestone

  "100" sketched for a 100-day shared streak. The celebrate-together moment.

• Quiet check-in

  A simple wave or smile when you don't want a real conversation but want to be seen.

• Encouragement

  After a tough week. The image lands differently than 'you got this.'

Frequently asked

• Why doodles instead of just text messages?

  Generic notifications are filtered out by your brain after about two weeks of seeing them — that's why every habit app's reminder system stops working by day 14. A hand-drawn sketch is the rarest format your phone delivers; nothing else looks like it. The novelty isn't the point — the personal-attention signal is. A doodle says 'a specific person spent 30 seconds drawing this for me right now.' That signal is much harder to ignore than yet another stock reminder.

• How does it actually arrive?

  As a normal iOS push notification, but the notification image is your partner's drawing. On the lock screen and in the notification banner, the doodle is the visible content — not a generic icon. Tap to view full-size in the app.

• What if I can't draw?

  Most users can't, and it doesn't matter. The point isn't artistic quality — it's the gesture. A bad stick figure of a coffee cup at 6am is more motivating than a typographically-perfect reminder, because it's evidence that one specific person is paying attention. Embrace the bad doodle.

• Can I send doodles outside of recovery flows?

  Yes. Doodle Nudges have two modes. The first is automatic, suggested as a recovery action when AI Streak Recovery flags an at-risk streak. The second is on-demand: tap the partner's avatar in any habit to draw and send anytime. Most users send 1–3 per week — celebrating a milestone, encouraging a tough day, or just acknowledging the partner showed up.

• Is there a frequency limit?

  Yes — the app rate-limits to 5 doodles per partner per day, mostly to prevent the feature from becoming pestering. In practice, most pairs send 0–2 per day even when there's no limit. The constraint exists for the rare case where a partnership turns nagging.

• Are doodles private?

  Yes. Doodles are encrypted in transit and stored only as long as needed for the notification + a 30-day partner history. Neither StreakMate staff nor any third party can view your doodles. They're not used for training data, advertising, or anything else.