Show HN: Sober Ringtones – Cringe-free ringtones for people who hate ringtones

[francescobonomi]

https://sober-ringtones.wize.io/

Hey HN,

fed up with cringy stock ringtones on my new phones, a few months ago I decided to "compose" my own ringtone for calls and notifications. It had to be minimal, no bells and whistles, low tones.

The result was nothing fancy, but that's exactly what I was looking for. I have been using it ever since and I'm pretty happy with it.

So after some time I decided to make a few more variants and share them online for other people who hate ringtones that sound like overblown symphonies, cheap disco hits or overly catchy jingles.

Would love to know if anyone is interested in this or if you're still stuck that default Samsung ringtone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzdDqpGt6A) ;)

I've been using 102, btw.

[BozeWolf]

Nice to see something different here! Like the first two the most. They are the simplest ones.

Long story short: I once did a project where I trained cows and attached mobile phones to them to literally call them to come to the milkingrobot. But what kind of ringtone do you pick for a cow? Ended up with a 90s/00s style classic telephone ringtone.

[francescobonomi → BozeWolf]

Glad you like them! Keeping it simple was the goal. Indeed I stopped at 4 variants, and they already feel like too many :D

Then you fall into the trap of making them a bit more original, and then a bit more, and then a bit more. But that would defeat the initial purpose of the project.

Hahaha, I'm interested in the project with the cows, did you manage to train them? Anyways yes, the 90s style classic phone ringtone is an all time classic and used it for many years as a ringtone

[Brian_K_White → francescobonomi]

It's good to have a few to differentiate the different sources, call, txt, signal, random app, etc.

Plus different people hear different tones differently,

and different tones or patterns are better in different environments. An otherwise ideal sound might be very difficult to hear in someone's work environment, and some other sound that is functionally equivalent but just at a different pitch or with a different speed of repeating pattern or pulse would stand out much better.

There's lots of reasons for a wide variety that are hard practical functional and not expressing individual style.

A long time ago on a Treo my favorite was a bird chirp, because it was a natural sound that carried (for the same reason it carries for actual birds) but mostly because it clearly contrasts from all the artificial sounds I was surrounded by. It's nothing like any other beeper from a microwave or dead battery or open fridge or anyone else's phone for that matter.

[francescobonomi → Brian_K_White]

That makes a lot of sense. 101 for example will hardly be heard in a crowded place.

I think these ringtones (especially 101 and 102) are more for people who almost always have their phone on silent and when they decide to turn on their ringtone they still want something very subtle

[spiffyk]

I've had my phone on vibrate for so many years I barely even remember what ringtone I have. But these do sound nice. May end up with a mixture of 102 and 103 maybe for the short periods I do not want to miss a call ;)

[JohnFen → spiffyk]

I agree, although even vibrate is too loud for my tastes. The biggest win of having a watch connected to my phone is that I can leave the phone entirely mute with the vibration off and get my alerts through an actually discrete vibration in the watch.

That said, these ring tones are better than most.

[francescobonomi → JohnFen]

I agree that for example when the phone is on a table or on a hard surface vibration can get really loud. Having it on your wrist it makes perfect sense

[francescobonomi → spiffyk]

Haha, I respect the full-time vibrate lifestyle :) But yeah, that was exactly my purpose: a ringtone a that is just a little bit more than having vibrate mode on

[gavmor]

If it's cringe to hear "Priority One message from Starfleet" emanating from my pocket, then I don't want to be cool.

[francescobonomi → gavmor]

Not here to judge anyone... but this might be too much for me :P

[andrewinardeer → gavmor]

Starfleet Command just sent a Priority One message saying you need to provide a link to this sound, please.

[francescobonomi → andrewinardeer]

Maybe this one :) https://www.soundboard.com/sb/sound/258364

[frankdvn]

I like these. My only gripe is that every tone, except 103, has a pop noise early on in the playback. I’m not able to unhear it. You might have to turn your volume up a tad for it to stand out.

[francescobonomi → frankdvn]

Mmm, I thought I fixed that! I should probably try them on a few different phones with different speakers. Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to fix them and will let you know

[frankdvn → francescobonomi]

Weird, I only hear the pop noise when playing the sound from my iPhone browser. After downloading it and importing it into Garage Band (in order to create a ringtone), the pop noise went away. My laptop also doesn't play the pop noise.

Regardless, great tones! I'll use the quite ones on for unknown numbers :)

Thanks!

[francescobonomi → frankdvn]

Oh that's interesting! Maybe Garage Band automatically applies some kind of compressor to the exported sound?

Anyways happy to know it fixed itself :D

[saaaaaam]

For a long time I used a recording I made of an old BT Tribune phone.

Not my recording but you can hear the same phone here: https://youtu.be/XczrL9Kk6r4?start=207

I’m pretty deaf and could hear this anywhere. Plus it meant I was able to distinguish my phone over other people’s.

Now I just have an Apple Watch which vibrates silently.

[francescobonomi → saaaaaam]

Yeah, old style ringers were the best. Simple and straight to the point, then at some point in history it started to go crazy.

[ahofmann]

Awesome project, thank you so much for that!

I'm using 102, but only because 101 is too "loud" for my pixel 7a. It sounds great on my headphones, but the low frequencies are too much for the tiny pixel speakers. So after going over 35% volume, the ringtone distorts heavily for a fraction of a second.

[francescobonomi → ahofmann]

Then I definitely need to fix it, it shouldn't distort of course. I'll have a look tonight and see if I can fix it :) Thanks for the feedback!

[deepandmeaning]

Like this idea, have been looking for subtle, soft but phone sounding tones for a while. Looking forward to any updates!

[francescobonomi → deepandmeaning]

Happy to see other people find it useful! I wasn't really foreseeing any updates, but interested to know if you have any ideas to expand the project

[flippy_flops]

A long time ago I came up with a dozen or so “camouflage” ringtones designed to blend in. One was just a vibration sound effect. Others just slowly faded in. The idea was if you accidentally left your ringer on it would sound like your phone was silenced.

But it’s so dang hard to install a custom ringtone. I thought someday Apple would provide an api, but nope.

[francescobonomi → flippy_flops]

Love the idea of the vibration sound effect as a ringtone! I might add it actually, great suggestion :)

Adding the ringtone on iOS is a pain in the ass, I was thinking to add a step by step guide right on the website... Apple provides a guide in their support articles (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692), it's not difficult but I don't understand the reason honestly. It should be simple with a .m4a file from the Music app, but you need the computer

[jfengel]

At this point, any ringtone is considered cringy, at least by millennials. Every once in a while I'll hear one make a beep, and its owner exclaim "How dare you talk to me!" Hearing other people's phones is considered rude.

Phones should be set to vibrate. If it's on your person, or near to hand, that's all you need, and nobody else has to know.

Some people do need a sound -- perhaps things are urgent, or they leave their phone across the room. If so, you want a sound that's loud. It doesn't need to be fancy, but it does need to draw attention.