Stups: Couples & Long Distance

Stups is the app for close friends, couples and long-distance relationships who want to send each other a little sign now and then, without typing a word. You tap a rhythm, and your contact’s phone vibrates exactly like that. “Stups” is German for nudge. A nudge is like a quick tap on the shoulder from far away. Nobody has to read anything or find the right words. Only the timing of your fingers is sent, and it plays back as a vibration on the other phone. It fits wherever a message would be too much and a call too loud: in a lecture, in a meeting or in the evening next to a sleeping child. For couples in a long-distance relationship, a sign like this means a lot. You can feel that the other person is thinking of you right now. Over time, you develop rhythms of your own that only the two of you understand. How Stups works • Tap briefly or hold longer on the pad. Stups measures every press and every pause. • Feel your rhythm yourself first, fix it and send it with a single tap. • A second or two later, the other phone vibrates. Even when the app is closed. • To nudge back, a single tap takes you straight to the sender. Your own language made of vibrations • Save rhythms you send often as a signature and load them in one move. • Your history shows every nudge you’ve received and sent, and you can feel each one again. • You set how strong the vibration is, if your phone supports it. Private and encrypted Stups needs no account, no phone number and no access to your address book. You connect with a short Stups code that you only give to the people you want nudges from. Every nudge is end-to-end encrypted. Nobody but the two of you can read the rhythm. The server only sees who sends a nudge to whom and when. With the security code, you can check that nobody is sitting in between. Your history stays on your device. You decide who can nudge you • Every vibration can be stopped instantly. • You can mute contacts for 8 hours or block them. • Anyone who sends too many nudges in a row is slowed down automatically. New phone? When you switch devices, your account, contacts, signatures and history move over via QR code. Your contacts won’t notice a thing. Good to know • Stups needs a phone with a vibration motor. The app doesn’t work on devices without one, such as many tablets. • Some manufacturers are very strict about stopping apps in the background. For nudges to arrive while the app is closed, Stups then needs permission to start in the background. The app shows you where to set this. • Stups is not a messenger. There are no texts, no pictures and no groups. Every nudge goes to exactly one person.