Show HN: Wildex – Pokémon Go for real wildlife

[AnujNayyar]

Dear HN,

My wife and I both love nature and have always wanted a Pokémon go style app, to collect and learn about different species we find.

All the usual species identifying apps were didn’t feel fun enough, so we designed and built one together!

Would love for you guys to give it a try and share any thoughts you have.

[_djo_]

Please do not build apps that allow people to specify the locations of wild animals, even in parks. Poaching remains at extremely dangerous levels, and every wildlife park I know of in vulnerable areas specifically asks visitors not to use those kinds of apps or groups because it gives location information to poachers.

Some wildlife parks have ‘daily sightings’ maps at rest stops and lodges, but those are monitored by park officials who remove the most at-risk animals and are cleared at least daily.

Aside from that, apps like this encourage bad behaviour from visitors in parks that allow self-driving, as dozens of people rush to the next leopard, lion, etc sighting. That not only creates its own risks but ruins the experience for everyone else.

In short, don’t do this.

[jackblemming]

So what you’re saying is technology can be abused by bad actors and the solution is.. stop developing technology?

Good luck with that.

[gazook89]

Consider just doing dropping the global leader board. Who benefits from it? For most, it’s a passing curiosity. But for some, it’ll be an obsession which ends up endangering them, animals/plants, and others. These kinds of contents can encourage someone who may not tromp through a delicate bog normally to decide to step off the boardwalk and recklessly go get that picture for the app points. And for 99% of the world, it’s just an additional screen with no chance of being relevant.

Replace it with a leaderboard amongst phone contacts/friended users

[anotherpaul]

Someone asked for the model you use but I am also curious how you handle ambiguous IDs. Not everything is clear cut especially when it comes to fungi and bugs.

Inaturalist uses second opinions what's your solution?

Edit: cool idea for the app btw, I always call inaturalist my Pokémon deck already so I think it's a nice new angle :)

[gnatman]

It appears the Wildex user in your 2nd screenshot is about to get mauled to death.

[SunshineTheCat]

Wait, so you're saying going up to catch a mountain lion for my collection when I'm out on a hike is a bad idea...

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

That gave me a good laugh

[wrboyce]

I really don’t understand silent mode on the iPhone (and I’ve used iPhones since the OG!) but your app is one of those that ignores it.

Either obeying silent mode or having an option to disable the, admittedly pleasant, sounds would be very welcome.

[AnujNayyar]

Good shout! thank you

[gazook89]

Consider just doing dropping the global leader board. Who benefits from it? For most, it’s a passing curiosity. But for some, it’ll be an obsession which ends up endangering them, animals/plants, and others. These kinds of contents can encourage someone who may not tromp through a delicate bog normally to decide to step off the boardwalk and recklessly go get that picture for the app points. And for 99% of the world, it’s just an additional screen with no chance of being relevant.

[cluckindan]

Why not Seek, the gamified version of iNaturalist?

[thaumasiotes]

Seek already does exactly the same thing that this app store listing advertises. You aim your camera at something, Seek identifies it as a random species, and then you get credit for that species against a big database.

People like it, but I also don't see why you'd need two Seek apps. You don't really need one, without an actual method of identifying the organisms.

[brikym]

iNaturalist kind of did this already right? So it's like that with more fun dopamine hits and gamification? If it gets kids outside I think that is good.

[AnujNayyar]

Just as an example, we are currently at lady bird lake in Austin, tx and saw a turtle on the bank. It turned out to be a red eared slider turtle. The app informed us that they can breathe through their bottoms! Who knew!

[swyx]

i thought this was more common than it is, but it's also not rare. Claude:

Around a dozen turtle species globally can breathe through their cloacas (rear openings), with roughly half living in Australian rivers. The main species that have truly mastered this ability include the Fitzroy River turtle, Mary River turtle, and white-throated snapping turtle. Additionally, some freshwater turtles like Blanding's turtle use a more limited form of cloacal respiration during hibernation when trapped under ice for extended periods. The Fitzroy River turtle is particularly impressive, obtaining up to 70% of its oxygen needs through cloacal respiration and staying submerged for up to 21 days. The white-throated snapping turtle can get nearly 70% of its oxygen this way as well. These turtles have specialized structures called cloacal bursae—sac-like organs with densely packed papillae (small blood vessel-rich structures)—that allow oxygen from water to diffuse directly into their bloodstream.

[herpdyderp]

No go with all the tracking.

[AnujNayyar]

As people are requesting we will make a paid version pronto with no ads.

As per apple guidelines you can request us not to track and the app of course respects that.

The location data is used only for helping us narrow down the collection species!

[GNOMES]

Thinking back to 2016 when Pogo launched there were news stories about trespassing, people getting hurt etc for virtual creatures...

I could easily see someone be foolish enough to go up to predators

[AnujNayyar]

We thought about this and specifically decided not to award xp based on an animals danger rating.

Even though we warn users in the onboarding to take care in the wild, TikTok and similar platforms have shown people acting foolishly is not something you can fully control

[mikeayles]

Ha, no way, I also built this: https://www.mikeayles.com/#zookeeper

https://zookeeperapp.com/

I wasn't incentivized enough to actually make it into a proper native app or submit to either store, but it's cool to see something taken to the next step.

[AnujNayyar]

This looks awesome!! Nice work!!

[dpoloncsak]

I think the main appeal of PoGo is just the collecting aspect, but some people are into the battling side of things. I'm not suggesting digial cock-fights, but maybe some sort of mini-games to use and show off 'rare finds' may go a long way. The comments here have many people comparing it to iNaturalist, maybe a good way to carve your own niche?

[AnujNayyar]

Yes!! We are working on this currently thinking of a top trumps style system with different stats!

[childofhedgehog]

I mostly use iNaturalist for foraging mushrooms, and have found it’s somewhat unreliable unless I already have an idea of what I’m looking for. How is this app set up for mushroom IDs? Sounds really fun and I love the concept but given some mushrooms are quite dangerous correct IDs are vital. I assume this also applies to plants?

[s0rce]

Mushrooms, mosses, invertebrates and even some plants seem to rely on specific small features that aren't always captured in photos of the thing to identify accurately down to the species level.

[thaumasiotes]

> I mostly use iNaturalist for foraging mushrooms, and have found it’s somewhat unreliable

iNaturalist or Seek by iNaturalist? I didn't think iNaturalist had an identification method other than "wait for an expert to come along and tag your photo".

Seek, on the other hand, is happy to make up identifications itself.

[pimlottc]

It’s an interesting idea but don’t like the focus on actually endangered animals. Why not encourage people to engage with the often ignored wildlife all around them? There are plenty of common birds and critters in your own town that you can enjoy spotting and learn about without trekking across the world.

[TZubiri]

Have you taken a look at Picture Insect and Picture this (for plants, original). the incumbents are very specialized, making a simple app for all nature sounds ambitious. I never did find one for bird sounds, but that would be an interesting niche.

[anotherpaul]

Isn't Merlin the birdsound app that is commonly used?

https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

[xandrius]

From the screenshots to the text feels AI slop. Haven't tried it but the store page doesn't give a good vibe and there are quite a few like this out there to make a quick buck.

[singularity2001]

Hopefully it will not result in too many animals being harassed all day long.

[rossdavidh]

1) I love the idea, but there's not a lot of confidence building, "I'm not going to harvest and sell your data" vibe here.

2) I should get extra points if I discover a new species

[AnujNayyar]

1) agreed by the look of everyone’s comments we need to rephrase some things in the onboarding, apple review made us change it to be explicit as possible. 2) yes this is a great idea!! ‘You’re the first in the world to discover this’!! Thank you for that!!

[cantalopes]

Cornell'd Merlin Bird ID and eBird are real life pokemon go!

[JR1427]

Use the excellent eBird and Merlin apps instead.

[echoangle]

How does it identify the animals/plants? Is there a specialized model for that?

[29athrowaway]

Gamifying encounters with wildlife... an idea that disrupts ecosystems.

Leave wildlife alone.

[whackernews]

Taking pictures of, let’s face it, mostly plants is pretty low impact compared to other things that are much more widely accepted. For example having a cat. Let’s maybe stop keeping apex predators as pets that decimate the local ecosystem first and then we can talk about people outside on their phones taking pictures.

[marcinignac]

Dude... unstoppable ads as first thing experience I see after collecting first plant completely killed the vibe for my daughter.

[xnx]

Has ads. Better to use Inaturalist or Seek.

[haunter]

DREAMPRESS.LTD > https://www.dreampress.ai/

It's all porn. Sigh, I hate this world. I really do feel like 2020 was the timeline alternating enigma event and we can never go back

[blorenz]

You have a snow leopard in your app screenshots. The Chinese woman just made the latest news cycles about being mauled by attempting to get a selfie with one. I hope those who use your app will ensure they are taking photos from a very safe distance.

[deadbabe]

The second photo is a tiger lunging at the camera ready to kill the user.

[swyx]

(semi serious) are there any ways to distinguish photos from being taken up close with no barrier vs behind plexiglass in a zoo?

[kylenessen]

Why not iNaturalist?

[AnujNayyar]

iNaturalist is great for identification and information, but it lacked the fun and soul we were looking for.

It doesn’t feel like you’re playing when you use it, it feels like you’re in biology class (no hate to them).

Wildex gives you cute fun facts and lets you build up points for rare species finds. It feels like a completely different experience.

[bix6]

Can we get a paid version with no linking? Your 3rd party ad / tracking isn’t compatible with my desires.

Otherwise looks fun!

[AnujNayyar]

Definitely soon, we just wanted to build a version that everyone can use regardless of income.

Unfortunately inference costs means we needed something (ads) to keep the servers online.

Out of curiosity what would you say is a fair price for this?