The original meaning of Siempo was a play on “siempre” (always in Spanish) and “tiempo” (time) - an ethos of always being mindful of the time we spend on screens, and evoking words like “simple” and ideas of living life at your own “tempo.”

Over time, we uncovered deeper meaning.

Tiempo = Time. Technology. The mechanical, masculine, logical.

Siempre = Always. Love. The infinite, feminine, intuitive.

Head and heart. Being and doing. Love and power. Left brain and right brain. Yin and Yang. Shakti and Shiva. Eagle and condor. Worldliness and holiness. Consciousness and form. Work and Life.

Siempo is about the balance, integration, and the union of polarities. We seek to embody that as individuals, in our product and organization.

The Android product is largely inspired by our community's ideas through our hardware exploration, the Time Well Spent movement, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen’s The Distracted Mind, BJ Fogg's Behavior Model, Positive Product Design, personal experience with mindfulness and other contemplative practices, and understanding the opportunities and limitations on Android. 

We also leverage resources such as Omidyar Network’s Ethical OS, and lean on our advisors and personal research into development psychology and philosophy to better understand the vulnerable parts of human nature and how to align our products in ways that are nourishing and not externalizing. 

Our stated public benefit is to create technology that protects and promotes human thriving.

We feel a moral imperative to expand our corporate purpose beyond maximizing shareholder value, to explicitly include social goals. Facebook had great intentions and made extremely expensive mistakes. Launchers in China put advertisements on the home screen. We want to be strategic in avoiding these pitfalls.

In addition to preventing mission drift, we anticipate recruiting advantages, stronger investor alignment, and more freedom to choose our own destiny in the future.

Investors are increasingly paying attention to companies that have a social or environmental impact. Well-known investors, including Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and Benchmark are actively invested in companies that have elected benefit corporation status.

We are currently seeking certification from B-Labs, joining beloved companies like Kickstarter and Patagonia.

We’re challenging Silicon Valley to a space race.

The largest companies have the resources to launch a Space Race to figure out how to redesign technology to elevate the human condition. To intentionally shape it to serve as an agent of flourishing individuals, institutions, and societies.

But they won’t. So we are. Siempo draws inspiration from The Tesla Effect: proving the effectiveness and commercial value of humane technology, thereby adding market pressure and accelerating adoption for all consumers.

Open Source is our go-to-market strategy.

We believe that inviting inspiration from a passionate developer community will accelerate the adoption of humane technology, while helping Siempo rise above the noise and become the brand that consumers and professionals rally around. Some of the largest software companies, from Mozilla to WordPress leverage open source strategies to improve their products, build powerful communities and brand equity. 

Siempo and The Center for Humane Technology have combined lists of thousands of developers, designers, data scientists, marketers, community leader and more who are eager serve this movement, which is garnering attention by the day. 

There are not many consumer-facing, ethics-oriented open source projects out there, so we see a prime opportunity to create a new moral center of gravity in Silicon Valley, attracting the best professionals who want to plug in and make a difference. We will work collaboratively with this community to identify high priority problems and prototype the solutions on Siempo products. 

Sign up here to join mission control.

We have a wide open opportunity.

Part of our strength comes from the fact that companies like Apple and Google are unable to take the lead in this race today, as they currently profit more off of the problem existing than by addressing it. 

Both companies have substantial economic disincentives to meaningfully reducing usage, and the nature of how Google rolls out the Android operating system prevents widespread adoption. 

Incumbents will continue to lag innovation in this space. We have deep appreciation for these companies and invite collaboration. (Hi there! We’d love to discuss how we can come together and create win win scenarios. We’re based in Oakland and can have coffee this afternoon if you’d like. Though I try to limit visits to SF/Peninsula to once a week 🙊)

Open source is an increasingly popular strategy for software companies to build a stronger product, brand, community and market position. Siempo will create premium products based on a collaboratively-developed open source platform. Open source does not impact our ability to generate revenue from consumers or businesses. 

-Galvanizing. Leverages potential energy of growing community of developers and designers who want to plug into humane tech projects. Siempo will access massive amounts of high caliber engineering talent who seek to volunteer their time.

-Trust. Holds organization accountable and builds brand loyalty. 

-Inclusion. Opens governance to a wider variety of stakeholders. Nurtures the seeds of innovation that come from a variety of sources.

-Efficiency. Subsidizes engineering costs and amplifies impact. Open source software is flexible and produces higher-quality code.

-Valuable. More than 40 commercial open source companies with over 100M in annual revenue. RedHat recently sold to IBM for $34B. Mozilla generates 500M in annual revenue from partnerships. WordPress offers platform of premium customizations on top of free software. 

In time we may break out the project into a foundation structure a la Mozilla. Siempo Inc.'s job will always be to monetize the open source project, whether it exists within a C-corp or hybrid corporate structure. 

We are discussing with our community the most appropriate license to use. At the moment we are considering the GPLv3 license.

We are initially focused on perfecting the experience on Android, using proceeds from this raise to improve the product and get out of beta. Android allows developers the most degrees of freedom and has a massive userbase (75% of global smartphone market, 53% United States). 

We are planning to begin iOS development later this year to serve customers who are aching for compelling digital wellness solutions, and are confident the traction we’ve made on humane design with the Android interface will serve us well as we’re building out humane tech applications.

While Apple's 3rd party developer platform currently does not allow us to replicate every feature we have built on Android, there are still a number of untapped, creative opportunities to help people

Meanwhile, we have been advocating for Apple to ease up on its developer restrictions, and through Digital Wellness Collective have been involved with efforts to make iOS a more open platform, e.g. requesting a ScreenTime API. With calls for regulation from multiple angles, Apple is may soon become fertile ground for Siempo, though our business strategy is not dependent on it. 

It's worth noting that it is extremely difficult for companies like Apple to internally develop something that is anathema to their culture and cannibalizes revenue. Siempo's success will likely influence Apple to adopt our best features, allow 3rd party launchers on iOS, or acquire us. Any of these will be a win for Siempo and for humanity.

You can use any brand and model of phone as long as it runs Android v5.0 (Lollipop) or above.

Open Siempo, go to Settings > Accounts & services > Exit Siempo services > Exit > Home > then select Siempo. This process will become more intuitive in an upcoming release.

To switch back to your regular Android launcher, go to Settings > Apps > Siempo > Home app then select your regular launcher.

If this option isn't listed, look for Open by default > Clear defaults or search for "default apps" and then tap "Home app"/Siempo.

For the best experience, adjust your Android settings to block notifications from apps that are distracting. You can do this from Settings > Notifications > Apps

The best way to submit feedback is to tap the menu button (vertical dots in the upper right corner of the home screen), then tap Help and then Send Feedback. This will automatically draft an email to our team. Please be as specific as possible.

You can also join our Discord or Reddit to provide feedback, discuss Siempo, receive technical support and stay up to date about new releases.

Home Screen Siempo replaces the stock Android home screen with a calmer, less distracting interface and allows you to personalize what message you see dozens or even hundreds of times per day.

Tap the text on the home screen to edit and save your “intention.” An intention is a goal or an idea that you want to focus on. Unlike a task, it might never be “complete”, but your top priority may change. Keep it short and positive, and try using command verbs. Whenever you unlock, take note of your intention for a moment.

Sample intentions:

• Be curious!
• You are loved.
• What are you grateful for?
• What are you avoiding?

Tempo

Another way that Siempo removes distractions is by allowing you to control when you receive notifications. Tap the bell in the top right of the home screen to select when you would like your notifications to arrive:

1. Individually, as soon as they arrive
2. Batched, every XX minutes (on the quarter/half hour) or X hours (on the hour)
3. Only at: XX:XX (like the mail!)

If you choose the second or third option, Do Not Disturb will be activated between deliveries.

If you would like select apps to be able to interrupt you immediately while Tempo is active, go to Settings > Notifications > Select apps that may interrupt you.

How Tempo works:

"Individually, as soon as they arrive" (default setting on install)

-Siempo notification control is turned off completely. All 3rd party notifications arrive normally according to native settings. No Siempo notifications are delivered.

"Batched, every..." AND "Batched, only at..."

-While either of the two "batched" Tempo modes is selected, the notification experience changes based on how the 3rd party app sending the notification is flagged (adjust in Settings > Notifications)

--App flagged as allowed to interrupt Tempo

---Each individual 3rd party notification is NOT suppressed and is allowed to arrive immediately and normally according to the user's native settings.

--App flagged as NOT allowed to interrupt Tempo

---Each individual 3rd party notification is suppressed. Siempo will save and duplicate the contents of the notification, then deliver that content in the form of a Siempo notification at the time specified by the Tempo batch or daily schedule (see below).

---At this scheduled time, re-created Siempo notifications will be delivered as a separate notification rather than as a single combined notification.

Note: inconsistencies in expected behavior may occur on certain devices and versions of Android. We are in the process of resolving these.

Menus

Siempo helps you access the apps that you need in the moment, while protecting you from unintentionally wasting time in other apps.

Swipe right to access your first page of apps. These are your frequently used tools, like maps and notes. We have unbranded and greyscale them so you can open the tool you need without any temptations or distractions. You can customize this screen to pick the tools that you want, and assign your favorite app to each tool (hold down on an app, then tap Select Tools). In addition, there is a search bar where here you can start typing and quickly save a note to Siempo Notes, send an SMS through native SMS, add a new contact, or start any apps.

The second page is for your “Favorites.” You can customize this screen to pick the apps that you want (hold down on an app, then tap Select Apps).

The third page is for your apps you have flagged for less use, like games, social media and dating. You can customize this screen to include the apps that you want to use less (hold down on any app, then select the ones you would like to flag or unflag). By default, the order of these apps will be randomized with each visit, to further prevent unconscious usage. You can turn this setting off in Settings > App menus.

Siempo has deep respect for your time, attention and privacy. During this phase of testing, you will need to agree to give the Siempo app certain permissions. This is to enable the features that you see in the app, and to help us learn how they are being used. In an upcoming release we will be asking for fewer permissions upfront.

We may use your name and email only to provide services to you and to contact you to notify you of (a) new services or products you may be interested in (including contests, promotions or surveys), (b) changes to Siempo, or (c) third-party services that may be of interest to you.

We collect non-personal statistical information that does not personally identify you. This includes non-personal statistical information about your mobile device, your internet connection, the equipment that you use and how you use Siempo (for example, which buttons you tap and screens you view within the app and which app settings you select).

You can read our full Privacy Policy here.

These features are still in development. You can also join our Discord or Reddit to provide feedback, discuss Siempo, receive technical support and stay up to date about new releases.

You will need to assign Siempo Notes as your default Note app on the Tools Screen.

Due to Google policy changes, calls and texts are no longer batched by Tempo.

When you receive notifications, the notification icon might default to the Siempo icon for some devices.

We’ve designed Siempo to use as little battery power as possible. Siempo needs to stay running in the background to allow you to keep track of your phone usage, and Android Oreo devices will notify you of this fact. You can dismiss this notification by following these steps:

1. Unlock your device running Android Oreo
2. Swipe down on the notification shade, fully exposing the “using battery” notification
3. Long press on the notification until it changes and shows a toggle
4. Tap on the toggle, making sure that it’s grayed out
5. Select Done to disable the “using battery” notification

Users can permanently disable the LED indicator in native settings.

You will need to assign Siempo Notes as your default Note app on the Tools Screen.

To set your intention, open a new tab, click on the intention to edit it, and click "ok" to save it.

Click the Siempo icon in the top right corner, and click options.

Click the Siempo icon in the top right corner, and click options. Then select the desired Nudge volume percentage.

Contribute! You can make donation in-app (Help > Contribute to Siempo), via PayPal (epay@siempo.co), or on Patreon.

Evangelize! You can help us spread the word on social media and in your IRL communities.

Co-create! Join our Discord and GitHub communities to learn how you can get involved with building Siempo products.