Hey y'all, looking for some honest input from people who actually ride with friends regularly.
The thing that gets me every time: half the day is spent stopping. Pulling up to the side of a run to wait for someone. Stopping at every fork to figure out who's going where. Standing at the bottom holding up traffic while you wait for the rest of your group. And that's before you even get into the lift line problem of "where the hell did everyone go."
My dad and I have been kicking around an idea: a voice channel app for skiers and snowboarders, basically Discord for the mountain. You hop into a channel with your crew at the start of the day, your phone stays in your pocket, and you can just talk to each other. "I'm going right at the next fork." "Stopping at the lodge in 10." "I'm above you on skier's left." No stopping, no pulling out your phone, no taking your gloves off.
Couple key things we're trying to solve for:
- Your music keeps playing. The voice channel sits underneath your music — it ducks when someone talks and comes back when they're done. So you don't have to pause Spotify to coordinate with your friends.
- You can switch between always-on (good for chairlifts and chill cruising) and push-to-talk (good for actual runs so wind doesn't drown everyone out).
- Phone never has to come out of your pocket. Tap your AirPod or hit a volume button to talk.
Before we go too deep down this rabbit hole, I genuinely want to know:
- Is this an actual problem for you and your crew, or are we just bad at staying together?
- What have you tried instead? Walkie-talkies, group texts, Apple Watch, just yelling?
- What would make you NOT use something like this? Battery, cell service, awkwardness, something else?
- Is there an obvious thing we're missing — like maybe there's already an app that does this and we just don't know about it?
Roast it. Genuinely want the truth more than I want validation.