u/DaikonSwimmingg

Guys is this something that is normal and can be managed? Or should I return?

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for a few Android users to help test ExpiryIQ, an app I've been building over the past few months. It's designed to help households reduce food waste and actually see the money they're saving.

Here's what it does:

You log your groceries when you get home. The app tracks expiry dates and notifies you before things go bad. It suggests recipes based on what's actually expiring in your fridge, which has been surprisingly helpful. You can share your household inventory with family so everyone knows what you have. There's a shopping list that organizes items by store. And it shows you exactly how much food you're wasting versus saving — which honestly shocked me the first time I saw the numbers.

For logging items, you can either type manually or add via barcode (camera barcode scanner is still being worked on, so manual entry is the main path right now).

I'm looking for testers who can spend 3-5 days using it and give me honest feedback. Try logging some groceries, check out the recipe suggestions, invite someone to your household, see what breaks. Report bugs, tell me if something feels clunky or confusing, or suggest features you think would help.

If you're interested, comment below or send me a DM and I'll send you the Google Play testing link.

I'd really appreciate it. This is a solo project and real feedback from actual users is invaluable before launch.

Thanks!

Testing link

Hello all, my name is Louis. This is my first post here in this page.

I built an app called ExpiryIQ that helps you log, track and understand what's expiring, best before, and use by in your kitchen.

I do most of the cooking and grocery shopping at home, so I end up being the one taking care of the inventory too. Watching food go to waste, and seeing my partner hate throwing things out as much as I did, I got determined to find a solution. I started with just a simple idea, a tracker and reminder app. Even in the early dev versions it was already cutting down waste in our household, and weirdly enough it started reminding me of stuff I never thought to track, gift cards about to expire, cosmetics nearing their use by, random things like that haha. From there I kept adding features that worked together instead of sitting siloed and overwhelming the user. That's basically how ExpiryIQ was born.

It goes beyond the usual tracking and reminder apps now. I'm not a developer by trade, just an engineer, I vibe-coded this entire thing alone over the past 3 months, nights and weekends, one man team, because I couldn't find anything that solved this properly. (OBSESSION LOLL)

ExpiryIQ lets you scan a barcode or point your camera at the expiry date printed on the pack and it reads it for you, though honestly the camera scanner is still a struggle and relies a fair bit on manual entry right now, something I'm actively trying to fix. It tracks every logged item in your fridge, freezer and pantry, and notifies you what's about to go off before it's too late. There's a HomeSync feature too, so if you live with a partner or housemates you can share one household inventory and shopping list between everyone, which honestly came from us constantly double buying things or not knowing what the other had already grabbed. The shopping list also has a shop by store view, so you can group what you need by Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, whatever stores you actually use (I am based in AU), instead of one messy list. There's also a data insights and usage log section, so you can actually see which shops you waste the most money at, broken down by store, category, location, whatever (yeah I went a bit overboard there). I've also been building a smart recipe recommendation feature, still early dev and needs a lot of fine tuning, that looks at what you actually have at home and suggests what to cook with it, prioritizing whatever's expiring soonest. To be clear, none of this has any stupid AI slop features, it's just solid logic and good data, I'd rather it work reliably every time than guess. I've also tried to curate a smart, simple, modern UI and UX, so hopefully it doesn't feel clunky to use. GOT DARK MODEEEE YEYYY!

I'm not trying to sell anything here, and honestly I'm not even trying to make money off this. If it ends up helping a few people waste less food, I reckon I've already won. I just want a few real people to try it, break it, and tell me what's confusing, stupid, or missing. I've shown it to a few people already and got mixed reactions, some didn't see the point, which is fair, not everyone cooks or cares about food waste the same way. But if you're someone who hates throwing food away, or you do the groceries for your house and you're tired of forgetting what's in there, I'd genuinely love your honest thoughts, good or bad.

Long term I'm thinking about closing the loop entirely, where this could help with the actual grocery shopping and even payment through the app, removing the manual logging hurdle altogether. Still just an idea for now.

Happy to send a build to anyone keen to try it out.

Thanks for reading this far.

Hello all, my name is Louis. This is my first post here in this page.

I built an app called ExpiryIQ that helps you log, track and understand what's expiring, best before, and use by in your kitchen.

I do most of the cooking and grocery shopping at home, so I end up being the one taking care of the inventory too. Watching food go to waste, and seeing my partner hate throwing things out as much as I did, I got determined to find a solution. I started with just a simple idea, a tracker and reminder app. Even in the early dev versions it was already cutting down waste in our household, and weirdly enough it started reminding me of stuff I never thought to track, gift cards about to expire, cosmetics nearing their use by, random things like that haha. From there I kept adding features that worked together instead of sitting siloed and overwhelming the user. That's basically how ExpiryIQ was born.

It goes beyond the usual tracking and reminder apps now. I'm not a developer by trade, just an engineer, I vibe-coded this entire thing alone over the past 3 months, nights and weekends, one man team, because I couldn't find anything that solved this properly. (OBSESSION LOLL)

ExpiryIQ lets you scan a barcode or point your camera at the expiry date printed on the pack and it reads it for you, though honestly the camera scanner is still a struggle and relies a fair bit on manual entry right now, something I'm actively trying to fix. It tracks every logged item in your fridge, freezer and pantry, and notifies you what's about to go off before it's too late. There's a HomeSync feature too, so if you live with a partner or housemates you can share one household inventory and shopping list between everyone, which honestly came from us constantly double buying things or not knowing what the other had already grabbed. The shopping list also has a shop by store view, so you can group what you need by Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, whatever stores you actually use (I am based in AU), instead of one messy list. There's also a data insights and usage log section, so you can actually see which shops you waste the most money at, broken down by store, category, location, whatever (yeah I went a bit overboard there). I've also been building a smart recipe recommendation feature, still early dev and needs a lot of fine tuning, that looks at what you actually have at home and suggests what to cook with it, prioritizing whatever's expiring soonest. To be clear, none of this has any stupid AI slop features, it's just solid logic and good data, I'd rather it work reliably every time than guess. I've also tried to curate a smart, simple, modern UI and UX, so hopefully it doesn't feel clunky to use. GOT DARK MODEEEE YEYYY!

I'm not trying to sell anything here, and honestly I'm not even trying to make money off this. If it ends up helping a few people waste less food, I reckon I've already won. I just want a few real people to try it, break it, and tell me what's confusing, stupid, or missing. I've shown it to a few people already and got mixed reactions, some didn't see the point, which is fair, not everyone cooks or cares about food waste the same way. But if you're someone who hates throwing food away, or you do the groceries for your house and you're tired of forgetting what's in there, I'd genuinely love your honest thoughts, good or bad.

Long term I'm thinking about closing the loop entirely, where this could help with the actual grocery shopping and even payment through the app, removing the manual logging hurdle altogether. Still just an idea for now.

Happy to send a build to anyone keen to try it out. Thanks for reading this far.