At one point my study app had its own hardware.
The app was Noteably, the first app idea I ever had: an AI study buddy that took your lectures, videos and documents and turned them into notes, flashcards and quizzes. It started as a big school project, and that part went fine. It worked, I learned a ton, and I finished the project.
Then I kept going. I wrote firmware for an ESP32 microphone, so you could record class on a little board and have it upload by itself, plus an iPhone app to pair the board over Bluetooth. I made a desktop app. I set up Stripe subscriptions, with a toggle for monthly or yearly billing. I never turned any of it into something people could actually use.
The repo has 918 commits. The last one, from July, moves sign-in from Supabase to Firebase. By then I'd already deleted the microphone.
Reading back through that log is a little embarrassing. Most of the commits are fine on their own. The problem is you can watch me do the same thing for months: get a screen working, decide the spacing is off, redo the whole thing. Spot a tiny imperfection and lose a day to it. Build out architecture for features that don't exist yet. Every week the app got more polished, and it never got any closer to being in anyone's hands.
Why a study app again
I'm 18, and studying is still most of my life. The tools I use for it come in two kinds. ChatGPT will just do the problem for you, which feels great right up until the test. Anki will help you remember anything, as long as you make every card yourself. Neither of them looks at your week and helps you get ready for the test on Friday.
I like building things that help people, and this is the most direct version of that I know, because I'm the user. I've had plenty of weeks with three tests and no idea where to start, so I don't have to guess what the app should do.
I didn't revive Noteably, though. I started over and called it Onsen.
What Onsen does
Onsen is a study app for high school and college students, on iPhone, iPad and the web.
- Add your classes and your test dates, and it builds a countdown plan for each test. Flashcards and quizzes are scheduled with spaced repetition, so you review things right before you'd forget them instead of cramming the night before.
- Take notes in class while Onsen transcribes on your device. Afterward you get enhanced notes: your lines stay yours, its additions are marked, and everything links to your textbook chapters. Homework goes into your planner, the notes turn into cards and quizzes, and the audio is deleted by default.
- When you're stuck, ask Kapi, the tutor. It asks you questions until you get there instead of handing you the answer, and it draws a diagram when words aren't enough.
- Link Canvas and Kapi reads your actual syllabus and assignments, instead of guessing from a class name you typed in.
The name, and the capybara
An onsen is a Japanese hot spring. You go to one to sit in hot water and do nothing for a while, which is about the opposite of how test week feels. That's kind of the point. Most of what stresses me out before a test is not knowing where to start. If Onsen does its job, that part is handled, and you walk in calm.
Kapi came after the name. If you look up capybaras in Japan, you find zoos that run hot spring baths for them every winter, with yuzu floating in the water. Izu Shaboten Zoo has been doing it since the '80s. The photos are all the same: a capybara up to its neck in steaming water, eyes half closed, completely unbothered, sometimes with a piece of fruit balanced on its head. I wanted a study buddy with that energy. Calm, a little sleepy, never on your case. So Kapi is a capybara with a tangerine on its head, and the name is just "capybara" cut short.
Kapi lives in a hot spring that starts out pretty bare. When a topic reaches Mastered, a plant grows in. When a whole chapter gets to Proficient, a lantern lights up. Keep a streak going and there's more steam and more yuzu in the water. None of it comes from opening the app or tapping through cards, only from actually knowing the stuff, because I didn't want a study app you could farm.
It's a small thing. It's also the part that makes opening the app feel less like homework.
Am I actually doing it differently?
Mostly.
I still care a lot about design, and I'm not trying to stop. What I'm trying to change is how long I sit on a decision: pick something, ship it, and fix it when a real student tells me it's wrong.
I should admit that last week I deleted Onsen's first app and rebuilt it from scratch to a new design. I can make the case that it's different from Noteably. It took days, not months, and nobody was using the old one yet. I can also hear how that sounds.
The waitlist is open
Today I'm opening the waitlist at getonsen.app. Early access goes to students on the list first, and I'm reading all the feedback myself (there isn't anyone else to read it).
If you're in high school or college, or you know someone who is, I'd really like you to try it, and then tell me what's wrong with it.