

Show HN: Flutter HP Redesign + Play/Pause Spotify, WMP via Gesture on Windows7 - mehuln
https://flutterapp.com

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TamDenholm
This sounds like an awesome app, however, i think it would be a little bit
creepy to have the webcam on whenever i'm using the computer...

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mehuln
Good news is that the app works entirely on your machine locally - no video
data ever leaves your computer so hopefully that will alleviate some of your
concern. :)

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drivebyacct2
Unfortunately, it also means I no longer know if an app is accessing my
webcam.

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timdorr
If it gains exclusive control of your webcam, then that's one way of knowing.
It would pre-empt any other control.

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ajaymehta
Excellent redesign of the home page! Huge improvement over your last version.

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switz
I wish Flutter would just turn music off when I walked away from the computer
and on when I get back. I always forget to turn it back on when I get back,
plus it would be nice to not worry about turning it off.

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mehuln
Great idea. :-)

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switz
If you ever implement it please let me know. I see the use cases of Flutter,
but 99% of the time it is significantly easier to just hit the play/pause
button (f8) on my Macbook.

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brackin
I had to uninstall Flutter because it opened on install and I couldn't find a
way to delete it.

I don't have a problem with pausing Spotify because I have play, pause and
skip keys on my Mac and I just hate having my webcam on, I know it's not
recording or going to the cloud but on the few occasions I tried to put my
hand up to pause and play it wasn't fast enough to fit into my workflow.

I see where this can be useful in the entreprise and other areas and as the
technology develops it will be important though.

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mehuln
Thanks for the kind feedback. We have changed it so that on Mac it launch on
start is optional. You can also turn it off from top menu bar icon if you have
older version. If you have really old version, then download the latest as it
is much improved in terms of false positives!

We hope you give us a try after we add few more gestures!

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brackin
I have the version from when it was first on HN a while back. I will
definitely try it out when you have more gestures :).

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mehuln
We just redesigned our Home Page & launched Windows (7) version of our app to
join the mac version. Yes, we are aware that everyone wants to a new gesture.
It is being tested right now and will be available soon. In the meantime,
please send us your feedback on HP as well as Windows App. Thanks in advance
from FlutterTeam.

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andrewpi
I'm on a Mac and the download button on the new site doesn't appear to do
anything.

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gsundeep
If you have a browser plugin that blocks mixpanel it doesn't work. This will
be fixed asap.

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dekz
This is the reason it didn't work for me, Ghostery (Chrome addon) blocks
mixpanel.

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gsundeep
Just fixed it. Let me know if it's still not working for you.

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joeconway
A lot of people struggle to see the point in this past being a cool trick.
Personally i find that when im cleaning the house or washing up(N.B. wet
hands) that this App is fantastic. The wait for more gestures is killing me
though.

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qxcv
Looks great! I've got a friend who has a set of speakers which come with a
separate "control module" which is touch sensitive. It doesn't pause music,
but it does a good job of muting it when you need to cut sound quickly - this
seems like a superior alternative due to its low cost and ease of use.

Also, just a heads up that your /about/ page and your /jobs/ page have dead
links to <http://flutterapp.com/jbos> at the top and are missing <title>
elements. I can also confirm lukifer's CSS bug occurs on FF13/Linux as well.

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Zaheer
Very unique HP and nice redesign! Personally I would add a little more space
between the sections if the page. Just feels a little cramped to me.

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seunghomattyang
Thanks! It was partly inspired by Watchmen but I guess print design rarely
translates well into web design. I'll work on it.

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citricsquid
Design feedback: some indication that we should scroll down, I didn't notice
at first and thought the download button was the main point.

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mehuln
Thank you - great point. Please keep sending all your feedback!

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lukifer
Beautiful and effective design. Kudos!

One note: there seems to be a CSS bug when scrolling right on a browser window
less than 1000px wide (Chrome, Mac).

Also: have you considered aiming marketing and features more at the media
center market? Every demo pic is of a laptop, and yet turning down the volume
from the couch with no remote seems far more useful.

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fallenhitokiri
The site looks a bit broken on the iPad

<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388004/flutter_one.png>
<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388004/flutter_two.png>

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csmeder
The link to your blog seems to be missing:

    
    
       <div id="blog"></div>
    

Also, I can't find the instructions for skipping songs and other gestures.

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gsundeep
Play/pause is the only gesture available currently. Other gestures are coming
very soon.

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sim0n
Have the gesture algorithms changed much at all since the initial HN release?
I had to uninstall it as it kept mistaking me touching my face/etc as holding
my hand to the camera.

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mehuln
Yes, we've done quite a bit of work since the initial launch just on that. It
should be WAY better. Please try and let us know.

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rbn
Hate to be that guy... But out of I don't know 20 tries it only worked once.
Maybe it's because of the room doesn't have enough light..

Really cool concept though.

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mehuln
Hi rbn, possibly it's a light. Would you please do us a favor and send us a
video of your lighting - that would help us improve? Also, please make sure
that your palm is at least 1 feet away so as to completely visible by webcam.

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james4k
What kind of implications on battery life does this have? As in, constantly
running the webcam.

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mehuln
James. You can easily turn it off thru menu bar icon when not using it.

In our tests it results on ~10-20% additional drain. We hope to make utility
high enough so that it doesn't matter.

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alttab
Really curious: what problem are you solving besides "pausing music when you
have many windows open" that would justify saying it is high utility?

Pausing music is a moot point if you use a Mac and iTunes. Speech recognition
built into the os can do this.

"can't reach" is such a first world problem that building an application for
it is laughable.

Am I missing something?

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mehuln
@alttab - thanks for your view point. We meant to say that we will add enough
utility overtime. Interestingly enough 80% of our downloads are also non-us so
may be it is a wide spread problem. Thx!

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alttab
What is your revenue model?

I'm not the best guy to value your services as I use bash, vi, and Grep for
everything. I understand the love for technology but the amount of time spent
building this app seems a little silly considering it is as far from solving
world hunger as one could get.

