Barcodes & Freedom Phone
My favorite things to build into Congruence are the ones that are so niche and specific to me that it might not even make sense for another app to exist with them. This post goes over two of those.
The first is ābarcodes.ā There are two places I frequent where I need to scan a barcode: my local Blue Bottle Coffee, where I scan a loyalty card, and my gym, where I scan an access card.
Previously, I had to manually go into the Blue Bottle app and navigate to the code page, and had to carry a physical barcode tag in my wallet for the gym.
But now, whenever I am physically nearing those places, Congruence detects my location and proactively sends me a push notification that I can press and hold to reveal the barcode. No need to go into an app or carry anything.
A simple pleasure for sure, but one I avail myself of multiple times per day.
The second such feature is my Freedom Phone feature. Iāve written previously on Freedom Phones in general, although Iāve now upgraded to a second iPhone for my Freedom Phone so that I can use Congruence on it (worth it!).
This has enabled a really nice flow: using Congruence to manage call forwarding. There is a button in Congruence that toggles whether my main phone is forwarding calls to my Freedom Phone or not. When I hit it, it dials the forwarding number (on Verizon: *72 [Freedom Phone number]) if forwarding is currently off, or the disable number (*73) if it is on.
This makes it really easy to toggle the state of call forwarding. But even better, there are a variety of indicators that tell me the current status. For example, on the home screens of my phones, there is a widget that says either THIS or NOPE:
And in the app itself, the Freedom module button lights up if it is on, and accordingly says either THIS or NOPE depending on which phone itās being used on.
I used to use Verizonās conditional call forwarding, but that isnāt a great experience for callers since if Iām on the Freedom Phone, it has to ring all the way through my main phone. But now it just perfectly routes to whichever phone I am on, and I can keep track and change it easily.
(p.s. I still strongly recommend trying a Freedom Phone experimentā¦ big quality-of-life upgrade.)
More posts coming soon on further Congruence featuresā¦
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