Beside vs Vana

Someone's here. Let's focus. Beside creates the feeling of someone working next to you -- without cameras, strangers, or interruptions. Body doubling is a proven ADHD and productivity technique, and now it's free on your iPhone. No account. No subscription. No paywall. Ever. HOW IT WORKS Open the app. Pick a scene. Start focusing. That's it. Each scene surrounds you with ambient sounds and subtle visual cues -- a coffee cup steaming nearby, pages turning, someone typing at the next desk. You never see another person, but you feel their presence. That's body doubling. 6 HANDCRAFTED SCENES Cozy Room -- Rain on the window, warm lighting, a desk lamp glowing nearby Coffee Shop -- Espresso machine hum, gentle chatter, someone typing beside you Library -- Whisper-quiet, pages turning, the calm focus of a study hall Lo-fi Room -- Chill beats, a companion at their desk, late-night creative energy Night Owl -- City lights, cricket sounds, your late-night study partner Garden Morning -- Birds, a gentle breeze, someone reading next to you FOCUS TIMER Set a session for 15, 25, or 45 minutes -- or go infinite. Lock your phone or switch apps and your scene keeps playing, with controls on the Lock Screen. A gentle notification lets you know when time's up. No pressure. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS See your focus history on a calendar. Build streaks. Watch your focus time grow over days and weeks. WHY BESIDE? - 100% free -- No ads, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases - No camera -- Your camera is never used. Period. - No account required -- Open the app and start focusing immediately - No strangers -- Ambient presence, not video calls with random people - No scheduling -- Focus whenever you want, not when a session is available - Works offline -- No internet needed once downloaded - Dark mode -- Easy on the eyes, day or night - Private -- No data collection, no analytics, no trackers BUILT FOR - ADHD adults who use body doubling to get things done - Students studying alone in their room - Remote workers missing the presence of coworkers - Anyone who focuses better when someone else is around Body doubling shouldn't cost $7-40/month. It shouldn't require a camera. And it shouldn't mean scheduling sessions with strangers. Beside is focus, simplified.

Vana is a focus timer with other people in it, and a gentle app blocker when you want one. It is free, and you can start without making an account. Press Begin and your animal companion settles into a small grove beside everyone else who is focusing right now. Nobody talks. Nobody scrolls. The light drifts from morning to dusk while you work. Think of the last time you got real work done in a library. You stayed in your seat because the people around you were staying in theirs. People with ADHD call this body doubling. Vana is that library, open at whatever hour you need it. HOW A SESSION WORKS Grove sessions run 30 or 60 minutes, and your timer is your own, so you can arrive in the middle of someone else's hour and still finish on yours. A grove holds eight people at most. Tap any companion to see how long that person has been focusing. There is no chat. You can send a wordless bubble, or a heart to someone who sat through the hour with you. Every animal in the ring belongs to a real person. Vana will never pad a quiet room with bots, so on a slow night your grove may be just you and your egg. THE GATE If you like, close the gate when a session begins: the apps you choose wait outside until it ends. If you came looking for an app blocker, this is that, but gentler. You are never locon opens the gate, and every focused minute still counts. The gate never closes on its own. It uses Apple's Screen Time on your device, and Vana never sees which apps you choose. WHAT THE HOURS TURN INTO Your first full grove session always ends with an egge grove session leaves one too. Eggs hold a newcompanion, something to wear or place, or more honey, so no hatch is ever wasted. There are nine species, and every animal comes out one of a kind, with its own coat and temperament. Honey is earned by focusing and cannot be bought. Spend it on cozy things to wear, cushions to meditate on, and decor for a garden of your own. The garden is a golden hilltop above the clouds, and you can focus up there alone, 5 to 90 minutes, whenever the grove feels like too much. The rarest pieces in the shop never come from eggs, so anything unusual on a companion was worked for. THE LANTERN Thirty minutes of focus lights that day's lantern. You get one grace day, your longest run is always remembered, and nothing here will ever tell you that you failed. Leaving a session early still counts every focused minute. No plant dies if you stop. Sign in with Apple whenever you like and your companions come with you to a new phone. A Live Activity keeps your session on the lock screen, and a home-screen widget carries your lantern streak. Vana sits beside your work and asks nothing of you except the time you already meant to spend.