Baby Soothers - Sleep Sounds

Baby Soothers - Sleep Sounds is a white noise, infant settling, and nursery toolkit app I originally built about 7 years ago for my first child to help her settle easily and sleep more soundly through the night.

After a solid initial run with strong organic adoption, the app went unmaintained for a period and was eventually delisted from Google Play for not meeting Google's modern target SDK requirements. I have since completely revived and re-architected it under a new package—rebuilding the core experience from the ground up to modern Android standards while introducing advanced smart features requested by parents.

🛠 What's New & What I Built

Engine Modernization & Target SDK Updates: Re-engineered the codebase to meet the latest Android OS APIs and target SDK requirements, ensuring full compliance with Google Play Store policies.
Edge-to-Edge Modern UI: Revamped the entire visual language with edge-to-edge display support, smooth micro-interactions, and accessible typography.
Background Playback Architecture: Optimized native audio service lifecycles to guarantee stutter-free background playback and minimal battery drain when the screen is off.
Smart Cry Detector with Auto-Shush: An on-device acoustic analysis engine that measures nursery sound decibels and automatically fades in soothing audio when sustained distress (>2.5s) is detected. Runs 100% locally on-device for total privacy.
Multi-Track Sound Mixer: Engineered a multi-channel audio mixer allowing parents to layer multiple sounds (e.g., rain + maternal heartbeat) with independent volume sliders and custom presets.
Circadian Nursery Night Light: Added a full-screen, low-luminance night light with 5 melatonin-safe hues (Warm Amber, Soft Peach, Moonlight Glow, Lavender Dream, Muted Mint) to facilitate midnight feeds without disrupting baby circadian rhythms.
Baby Touch Lock: Built a deliberate 2-second hold gesture lock that freezes cribside screen input to prevent accidental finger taps or toddler bumps from cutting playback.
Pediatric Sleep Guides & Routine Tools: Integrated age-based awake window charts (0–18+ months) and interactive bedtime checklists.
Widgets & Offline-First Privacy: Built lightweight Home Screen quick-action widgets, 100% offline capability (zero account required), and complete bilingual localization (English & Bahasa Indonesia).

📱 Key Features & Product Overview

1. Smart Cry Detector (Auto-Shush)

Decibel & Duration Recognition: Listens for baby distress patterns; triggers auto-soothing once crying persists beyond 2.5 seconds.
100% On-Device Privacy: Processes audio signals strictly in local memory. No sound is ever recorded, stored, or streamed to remote servers.
Configurable Sensitivity: High (cribs 1–2m away), Medium (bedside), and Low (loud cries only).
Intelligent Call Shield: Pauses background detection when switching tasks or taking calls to eliminate false positives.

2. 36 High-Definition Curated Sounds

Categorized across 5 calming acoustic profiles:

Womb & Calming: Heartbeat, Prenatal Womb, Hush, and rhythmic Shhhhh.
White Noise: Pure White Noise, Household Fan, Hair Dryer, Vacuum Cleaner, Washing Machine, and Clock.
Nature: Gentle Rain, Thunderstorm, Ocean Waves, Forest Canopy, Creek, Waterfall, Night Ambience, Pond, Cicadas, Wind, Birds in Rain, and Frogs.
Household & Travel: Car Ride, Train, Shower, and Ambient Market.
Lullabies: Gentle music box melodies and orchestral bedtime arrangements.

3. Multi-Track Mixer & Presets

Layer & Balance: Freely mix and blend nature and womb sounds with individual volume faders.
Quick Presets: Ready-to-use mixes like Colic & Fussy Calmer, Peaceful Forest Creek, Car Ride Journey, and Womb Comfort, plus custom user save slots.

4. Melatonin-Safe Nursery Night Light

Low-blue-light spectrum lighting with a full-screen vertical brightness slider for midnight diaper changes and nursing.

5. Sleep Routines & Smart Timers

20-Second Acoustic Fade-Out: Selectable timers (15, 30, 45, 60 mins) that gradually diminish audio levels over 20 seconds to prevent sudden waking.
Developmental Sleep Aids: Age-appropriate awake window benchmarks and nightly step-by-step checklists.
Localized Experience: Native language support in English and Bahasa Indonesia.

💻 Tech Stack & Engineering Highlights

Platform: Huawei & Android (Modern Kotlin Architecture)
Audio Pipeline: Low-latency multi-track audio playback engine, foreground media service lifecycle management
Signal Processing: Local decibel-level listener for cry detection
Persistence & State: Local persistent storage for custom audio mixes and routine checklists
Privacy Standard: Zero third-party telemetry, 100% offline-ready, no network permissions required for core audio/detection logic