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Read the Room, a FOSS human bioindicator

Read the Room, a FOSS human bioindicator

by soudk·Feb 25, 2026·2 points·0 comments
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AI Analysis

●●SolidCozyZero to OneNiche Gem

Zero-knowledge polling with passkey auth, but adoption and network effects will make or break it.

Strengths
  • •Privacy architecture genuinely separates responses from respondents—city vote counts aggregated server-side without user linkage.
  • •Thoughtful design philosophy: no engagement maximization, no algorithmic feed, focuses on distribution over debate.
  • •Cross-platform (Flutter), open-source (AGPLv3), and runs on real infrastructure (Supabase)—not vaporware.
Weaknesses
  • •Polling without network effects is just a survey—needs critical mass to surface meaningful regional patterns.
  • •No clear defense against sybil attacks or bot-skewed aggregates if anonymity is the only identity mechanism.
Category
Social
Target Audience

People curious about global opinion distribution; researchers interested in cross-regional perspective analysis.

Similar To

Pew Research polling infrastructure · Atlas of Opinions · Google Surveys

Post Description

Hey HN!

Read the Room is an anonymous social polling app that lets anyone filter or compare results between generations, countries and cities.

Example: Rate "Is remote work overrated?" on a 1-5 scale and see if Gen Z in Austin agrees with Millennials in Berlin.

Privacy-first architecture: Response history stored locally on your device, only aggregates hit the server. Aiming for close to "zero-knowledge polling", Passkey auth (no passwords, no accounts). Each response to a poll is submitted as "City X votes +1 in bucket Y" without attaching the user to the response, or the fact that they responded to the question in the first place (all that is processed on device). Built with Flutter + Supabase, AGPLv3.

I built this slowly over a couple of years because I was tired of mass social media masquerading as surveillance tech, and I wanted to build what a "human bioindicator" might actually look like in an OSS paradigm. It's designed as a nonprofit, mirroring Wikipedia.

We're live at 500 installs across 50 countries with ~100 weekly actives right now, with vast majority of folks in the US/Canada. Though, it'd be cool to diversify that a bit more. English-only for now, but designing the multi-language support and will implement it once there is more traction.

Would love your feedback, and happy to answer questions!

Read more: https://readtheroom.site

Code: https://github.com/readtheroom-knowtheworld/readtheroom-app

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6747105473

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.readtheroo...

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