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Show HN: Use email subject lines to save personal stats and chart them (statlogger.com)
90 points by darrennix on Aug 5, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 31 comments



I'm usually among the more skeptical in Show HNs and this is great. Absolutely dead simple, manages itself, no login etc, easy to see the benefit and all I do is save the email in case I ever feel like I want to start.

Only thing I can think of is perhaps the option to not receive an email every time I update the stat? Like perhaps I only receive an email with CSV etc when I send statname and no numbers? I realize adding features only subtracts from the merits I mentioned earlier but this might be one worth considering (along with SMS as someone else mentioned, though that can be a chore). Thanks for posting.


OK, this is cool. Dirt simple (well, at least the user), cool concept, obvious value (or at least obvious intrigue factor), simple clean web site.

Nice job.


This is way cool. But how do I know you are not going to catch a severe case of acquihiritis and die unless you start charging money of some kind?

This way I feel almost certain my data will disappear in a few months from now, so am much less likely to invest energy in building a new habit.

It's sad how cynical I've become re: cool free services. It didn't use to be that way. sniff


I thought about this and I'm building a safety net: each email will include an attachment with a CSV of your historical data so in the worst case scenario that the service shuts down, you'll have a built-in archive ready to go.


ok. you got me!


Let me do this via text instead of email, and I'm in.


Yeah, this is immensely better via SMS. So much so that I was reading the comments to see if you were going to do it, otherwise I was going to ;)


> immensely better via SMS

Why is that? On Android, sending an email and an SMS follow nearly identical courses of action, and require the same number of taps. I can only see cons with an SMS approach (can only access from single device, can't bundle csv data in reply) so I'm honestly curious.


Hmm. Great suggestion. Will add.


You might be able to use Twilio and OpenVBX to just forward SMS to your existing email address.


Sending stats via Twitter would also be good.


Lovely! I would love to be able to track 2 things (or more) in the same email, like weight and height of my son (usually we have both numbers at the same time when we visit the pediatrician).


That makes sense; I toyed with the idea of implementing this. For now you can send two different stats in the same email subject line and you'll get two separate charts back in the replies.

I'll probably work on combining the two stats in a single chart instead.


That's more than enough! I really don't see myself using combined charts.

BTW, should I get a reply after sending the first email of a stat?


a simple version to start could be stat1_stat2 (8 7)


heh although that would work I think sticking with natural language is better, it's really not that hard to parse "word word number word number"


This is superb. I'm going to use it as a daily logging service for the number of users who sign up for my service. I get this email everyday telling me the number of signups and I've been procrastinating adding a line chart to give me some historical data along with it. Hope you don't mind me linking this to a server. :-)

Also, +1 for more options to power users. This is dead simple which is why it works but if I have data for than a month, this might start to get messy for me.


This is really sweet. I wonder if I'll actually use it past today - only one way to find out!


Very cool. I would like to be able to send 'stats' (or whatever) and get back all graphs in a single email. In case I forget what I'm tracking.


Well, it doesn’t work for me and I am sad. Now you probably know my falling hair chart and I don’t.


This is amazing. Was planning on doing a run tracker, similar to this, via twitter. Thanks!


Great work! What are you using for the email handling e.g. service?


Do you have to make sure that email body is empty?


No. It will read the subject first and only if the subject is empty will it read the body.


I will put a hat just to take it off.


i like this idea. add cumulative stats and charge money and you've got a business


Ah; it supports this already (I call it "relative stats"). Just send subject line "Stat +2" and "Stat +1" and you'll get 3 as the result.


my goodness I am slow today. some combination of my browser and dev environment mashed your page so i only saw the first kind of stats.

okay, so start charging money :D


The barriers to entry are so low -- I can send an email from any device.


Damn, this is clever. Nice job!


excel or google excel is to difficult to use?




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