A COACH IN YOUR MENU BAR
STANDCOACH
Your standing desk works. Your habit doesn't. StandCoach lives in the macOS menu bar and ramps you from 10 minutes of standing per hour to a 50/50 split — one earned week at a time, and only when you're actually at your desk.
FREE · MENU-BAR ONLY · YOUR DATA STAYS ON YOUR MAC
DIAGNOSIS
Your standing desk is mostly
a very expensive sitting desk.
Day one: three heroic hours on your feet. Day three: your legs file a complaint. Week four: the preset buttons gather dust. The hardware was never the problem — the dosage was.
Enthusiasm isn't a dose
Standing too long, too soon trades back pain for leg fatigue — and ends the habit before it starts. Progression is the whole game.
Reminders that can't see you
Generic apps fire on the hour — in meetings, on the couch, away from the desk entirely. You learn to swipe them away, then stop noticing them at all.
Invisible progress
No streak, no history, no trend line. A habit you can't see is a habit you can't keep.
THE CYCLE
One glance.
Sit ⇄ stand, on rails.
- 01
SIT · clinical blue
External display detected → the sit timer starts. Week 3 gives you 50 minutes.
- 02
PROMPT · amber
"Time to stand (20 min)." DONE starts the clock — SNOOZE buys five more.
- 03
STAND · vital green
The stand timer runs. Desk paired? It rises with you — and standing past the goal keeps counting.
- 04
RELEASE
"You can sit now." Back to 01 — all day, automatically. The menu-bar icon tells the phase at a glance.
THE RAMP
Ten minutes an hour.
Then, quietly, half your day.
Weeks are earned, not handed out: hit your daily standing goal on 4 of 7 days and the next week unlocks — fall short and it repeats. The 35/35 plateau is deliberate; sit-stand research puts ~50% standing at the ceiling where benefit outruns leg fatigue.
RESET WEEK restarts the progression at week 1 · your standing history is preserved.
PRESENCE
It knows when you're
actually at your desk.
The proxy is beautifully boring: your external display. Plugged in means you're at the desk. Everything else follows.
- PLUG IN — coaching starts. The sit timer begins the moment your setup wakes.
- UNPLUG — timers pause and pending prompts clear. No ghost notifications at the coffee shop.
- RECONNECT — clean resume, mid-cycle, exactly where you left off.
- PAUSE FOR TODAY — one click silences everything until tomorrow. Coach, not drill sergeant.
PRESS THE KEYS — THE DEMO DESK OBEYS
BLUETOOTH · OPTIONAL · OFF BY DEFAULT
It can drive
the desk itself.
Native CoreBluetooth speaking the Jiecang protocol — Uplift, Desky, Jarvis and friends. Pair once; it reconnects on every launch. No bridge, no Home Assistant, no cloud.
- AUTO-RISE — stand time starts, the desk glides to your standing preset.
- CONSENT TO LOWER — it never descends on its own. "Lower desk" is always your tap.
- DESK = SOURCE OF TRUTH — raise it any way you like and the standing time counts; the goal keeps counting until you lower.
- WIGGLE TO REMIND — optional: a gentle up-and-back nudge the moment the prompt fires. Nets to zero; pure body language.
UPLIFT DESKS NEED THE UPLIFT CONNECT BLE ADAPTER · ONE BLUETOOTH LINK AT A TIME — QUIT THE PHONE APP.
THE RECEIPTS
Streaks that respect your weekend.
Working days only — Sat/Sun in the US, Fri/Sat in Israel, per your Mac's region. Every other Friday is a scheduled rest day, and your week starts on whichever day you choose.
PRINCIPLES
An app that interrupts you
for a living has to earn it.
QUIET
- NO DOCK ICON — menu-bar only (
LSUIElement). No window clutter, ever. - PROMPTS ONLY AT YOUR DESK — and snooze, or pause for today, when life happens.
- THREE NOTIFICATION STYLES — banner + sound, banner only, or fully silent: the menu-bar icon alone signals the change.
- POWERS ON WITH YOU — launch at login via
SMAppService; integrations stay off by default.
YOURS
- SANDBOXED, NO NETWORK — your data never leaves the Mac.
- LOCAL-FIRST STORAGE — schedule, streaks and history live in
UserDefaults, keyed by day. - BLUETOOTH IS DESK-LOCAL — BLE to your desk, not the internet. Analytics? Strictly opt-in, off by default.
- RESET WEEK, KEEP HISTORY — restart the ramp anytime; the record of what you did survives.
Everything works offline. Analytics is off by default and collects no personal data. Read the full Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Is StandCoach free?
Do I need a standing desk to use it?
How does it know when I'm at my desk?
What data does StandCoach collect?
UserDefaults. The only optional exception is anonymous Firebase usage analytics, which is off by default and collects no personal data. See the Privacy Policy.Which standing desks are supported?
Does it sync with Apple Health or my Apple Watch?
STANDCOACH ▸ GET STARTED
STAND UP.
GRADUALLY.
REQUIRES MACOS 14+ · FREE · MAC APP STORE COMING SOON