PazBy

PazBy: a personal radar for the places you keep meaning to visit

PazBy is an Android app that reminds you about a place at the one moment it matters: when you're actually there. Save a place, add a note if you like, and go about your life. When you come within range, your phone taps you on the shoulder and, if you want, says it out loud: *"Arrived at Canadian Tire. Don't forget: return drill bits."*

It's US$2.99 once. No subscription, no account, no ads, no server.

Where the idea came from

About ten months before launch, a podcast host raved about a sandwich shop in Toronto. I made a mental note to go. Then I rented a car for a couple of day trips and drove past that exact place four times, twice at lunchtime, and never once thought to stop.

I hadn't forgotten the sandwich shop. It just never came to mind at the one moment it would have been useful. Ten months of "I should go there," four chances, zero sandwiches. That gap between knowing about a place and thinking of it at the right time is the whole problem PazBy solves.

Why existing tools miss it

To-do apps only work if you remember to open them. Calendar reminders fire at a set time, whether you're near the place or not. Saved places in map apps are just a list. And Google Keep, which used to do location reminders on Android, dropped them when its reminders moved to Google Tasks. Productivity suites like Todoist, TickTick and Any.do still offer them, but only in paid tiers that run US$36 to US$80 a year.

How it works

1. **Save a place.** Long-press the map, tap a labelled store or restaurant, or share from Google Maps. PazBy fills in the address.
2. **Add a note.** "Pick up the prescription." "Get the brisket." It shows in the notification and is read aloud.
3. **Forget about it.** PazBy runs quietly in the background. Nothing to open, nothing to check.
4. **Arrive.** You get a notification and an optional voice announcement. It alerts only on arrival, never when you leave.

**Features**

- Spoken reminders that duck under music and podcasts, so they work in the car
- One-time places that delete themselves after you've been
- Places that appear only on certain days or hours: a Saturday market, a happy hour
- Optional approach alerts, quiet hours, and per-place mute controls
- Custom icons, colours and radius presets; unlimited places
- Every saved place on one map, numbered by distance, so you can bundle nearby errands into one trip
- One-tap hand-off to Google Maps or Waze for directions
- Travel Mode, which hides your everyday errands while you're abroad
- Share a place by link; it opens straight into PazBy for friends who have it
- Optional daily digest and a home-screen widget
- Encrypted backup to your own Google Drive

**Everyday errands, and travel**

Most days PazBy saves you a second trip: the hardware store, the pharmacy you pass every week, the parcel to return, the café a coworker mentioned. On a trip, it turns your list of tips into a quiet city guide. Save the bakery, the viewpoint and the bookshop before you fly, and PazBy nudges you when you're a block away. Saved places live on your phone, so the radar works without mobile data.

**Battery: the Radar Gearbox**

The hardest part of building PazBy was watching your location all day without draining the battery. PazBy shifts gears based on what you're doing. Sitting still, it drops into deep sleep with no GPS polling. Walking, it checks about every 15 seconds; driving, every 5; at highway speed, every 2.5. A normal day with 5 to 10 saved places uses about 2 to 5% of your battery. Overnight it costs effectively nothing.

**Privacy by design**

There is no PazBy server, so your places have nowhere to go. They live in an encrypted database on your phone. Optional backups go to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive, encrypted with a passphrase only you know, so I can't read them. No analytics SDKs, no advertising ID, no data sales. Just anonymous crash reports.

**Pricing**

US$2.99, once, shown in yo