Saelyx started with a small annoyance, the kind you can't really complain about and that wears you down anyway. I worked with a coding assistant in the terminal and dictated with Wispr Flow so I wouldn't have to type everything. Two good tools, each minding its own business. Between the two, a gap.
Dictating I could do. I'd talk, the text would appear, I'd send it, read the answer and go round again. But if I said “look at this bit here”, I had to explain what “this bit” was, because whatever was on the other end couldn't see what I was seeing. What I couldn't find was a comfortable way to work with my voice.
I'm a DevOps engineer. At work I've spent about four years deep in machine learning and MLOps, now as a tech lead, and that's where I picked up the habit of trying things before having an opinion about them. That habit is what I brought home.
01I was the glue
Meetings were much the same. Either I took mental notes, which is a polite way of saying I trusted myself to remember it all, or I went hunting for some third-party app that would record and summarise. One more app, with its own account and its own summary in a corner somewhere else.
Each tool solved its own little piece and none of them knew about the others. I was the glue: dictating here, reading there, explaining again what was on my screen, rebuilding from memory what had been said in the meeting.
The feeling has stayed with me: several things open and none of them aware of the rest. You can live like that, and I did for a while. Nothing serious, ever. It's just that sometimes I stopped myself asking something because explaining the context cost more than going without the answer.
02One tool
What I was after was one tool that brought together everything I do in a day: talking while I work, having whatever listens see what I see, and not leaving meetings in yet another app. Wispr Flow does its own job very well (I go through the comparison properly in Wispr Flow alternative); what I was missing was everything around it.
Nothing I found put it together the way I needed, so I started building it.
I made it for me and my partner, without anyone having asked. It was small and clumsy at times, and whatever got in my way I fixed straight away. There's something good about building for two people: you know exactly who will use it, and there's no one to impress. If something was in there, it was because I'd needed it.
Watching someone else use something you made for yourself is strange: suddenly you notice everything you took for granted. My partner was patient enough to use it while it was still half-finished, bugs and all.
03Some friends, and a question
Then I showed it to a few friends, and it worked for them too. It's one of the nicest things that has happened with all this: something made for two was working for a few more. Friends are generous about what you make, I know, so I took it with affection and with care. Even so, it was enough to make me wonder whether it deserved to be a real app.
I decided it did, so it had to be done properly: a quick fix only has to make sense to whoever built it, but an app has to explain itself to people who didn't, and answer for what it does.
Mac and iPhone came first, built natively. Android followed, and you can't download it yet. Windows, some day; I'm not putting a date on it because I'd rather not promise what I can't deliver.
04One thing at a time
Since then I've been adding things one at a time, almost always for the reason it all started: one ordinary day, something was missing. Talking to the terminal became a feature (I explain it in voice terminal). Listening to meetings from your own Mac, without putting a bot on the call, became another (no bot in your meeting). There's no grand plan behind it, only a list of annoyances I keep crossing off and a lot of trying things to see what happens. On this blog I write down what I measure along the way, and when I get it wrong.
It's still a home project. What I'm after from the people who sign up isn't getting rich; it's keeping the platform going and paying its own way, so that I, my friends and the people I like can keep using it.
Sometimes I think back to the first version, when it only had to work for two people and it was enough that it got through a normal day. Thank you to my partner and to those friends, who used it when it was still a quick fix.
05Frequently asked questions
Who makes Saelyx?
I do, Adianny, from Madrid. It started as a tool for me and my partner.
What problem was it meant to solve?
Being the glue between tools that didn't talk to each other: being able to talk while I work, having whatever is listening see what I see, and keeping meetings out of yet another app.
Will there be Android and Windows versions?
The Android version is built, but you can't download it yet. I want to make a Windows one some day, with no date. What you can use today is always on the home page.
— Adianny
Senior DevOps engineer. I've spent about four years working with machine learning and MLOps, now as a tech lead; Saelyx is my side project.