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Water Softener Buddy

Your softener ran out of salt and nobody noticed for weeks. This app works out when the tank will be empty and reminds you a few days before. No sensor to buy, nothing to install.

📱 iPhone & iPad 🤖 Android Free $2.99 unlock

App Store · coming soon Google Play · coming soon

Why it exists

“I forgot the salt.” “I thought you did it.”

The brine tank lives in the basement or the garage, and nobody looks at it until the water feels wrong. By then the house has had days or weeks of hard water: scale building up in the water heater, spotty glasses, and a softener that has to work harder to catch up.

Smart softeners and $89 salt sensors fix this if you buy them. Water Softener Buddy is for the ordinary softener you already have. It estimates how fast your household uses salt, gets better every time you glance in the tank, and tells you before it runs out.

How it works

Three steps, then it mostly runs itself

No account and nothing to pair. Setup takes about a minute.

Tell it about your softener Tank size, water hardness (or a ZIP code for a starting guess from public county data), people at home and salt type. Every question has an “I don’t know” answer with a sensible default.
Glance in the tank now and then Lift the lid and slide to where the salt is. Each level check teaches the app your real salt use, and a label shows how sure it is: Estimate, Learning or Confident.
Get reminded in time A few days before the tank runs low, you get a notification. Tap Added salt right on it, or snooze it to the weekend or by two days.

Wondering what a typical softener uses? See how much salt a water softener uses, by water hardness and household size.

Free, and what the unlock adds

The reminder is free for good

The free app fully solves “I forget the salt”. One $2.99 payment, not a subscription, adds problem alerts, household sharing, the full maintenance schedule and more.

Feature	Free	Pro · $2.99 once
Days of salt left, predicted refill date, tank gauge	Yes	Yes
Refill reminders with Added salt and snooze buttons	Yes	Yes
Refill and level history with a 30-day chart	Yes	Yes
Home-screen widget showing days left	Yes	Yes
Salt bridge check and brine tank clean, on schedule with steps	Yes	Yes
Salt types guide	Yes	Yes
JSON backup and CSV export	Yes	Yes
Troubleshooter	3 guides	All 7
Share a softener with your household (iPhone and iPad)	Join for free	Invite and manage
Problem alerts: salt bridge, unusual salt use, stopped regenerating	No	Yes
Full maintenance library and your own tasks	2 tasks	Yes
Settings calculator	No	Yes
Insights: salt per month, bags and cost per year	30-day chart	Yes
Salt on hand and a buy-salt reminder	No	Yes
Lock-screen and medium widgets, Control Center, Siri (iPhone)	No	Yes
More than one softener	1	Unlimited
Equipment records: photos, manual, warranty reminder	Model and serial	Yes
Vacation mode: reminders pause while you’re away	No	Yes
Refill and maintenance days in a calendar you choose	No	Yes
QR sticker for the tank and a PDF service history	No	Yes

Family Sharing is on. One purchase covers your Apple family, and anyone you invite to a shared softener can join and log refills with the free app.

Household sharing · iPhone and iPad

One tank, one reminder, everyone in the house

In most homes one person buys the salt and someone else lifts the bag. Sharing uses iCloud, so there’s no account to create.

Everyone sees the same tank Invite the people you live with through Messages or Mail. Anyone can check the level or log a refill.

One refill clears it for all When anyone adds salt, the reminder goes away on every phone. A refill can take a few minutes to show up on the others.

Who did what History shows “Jen added 2 bags”, and you can get a notification when someone else logs a refill.

“I’ll buy salt” Claim the shopping trip so nobody else comes home with a second bag.

Assign a task Give the yearly tank clean to one person. Only they get the reminder; everyone can see it.

Your own reminder style Be reminded always, only if nobody has added salt a couple of days later, or never. Reminder times are personal and don’t sync.

Privacy

No account, no tracking, no subscription

No account: there’s nothing to sign up for or log into.
No tracking: no analytics and no ads. The App Store privacy label is “Data Not Collected”.
Your data stays yours: it’s on your device, and on iPhone it syncs through your own iCloud account. We can’t see it.
Android has no internet permission: the app can’t send anything anywhere.
No subscription: the free app stays free, and Pro is a single $2.99 payment.
Export any time: JSON backup and CSV, free. A backup from an iPhone imports on Android.

Full details in the privacy policy.

What it doesn't do

The limits, plainly

Estimates, not measurements. It gets more accurate as you log level checks.
No sensors or smart softeners. It doesn’t connect to either, or to any brand’s app.
A ZIP is just a starting guess. It suggests a county average from public data, offline — not your exact tap, and wells usually run harder.
Sharing is Apple-only. It uses iCloud, so Android phones can’t join a shared softener.

FAQ

Questions, answered

How accurate is it without a sensor?

On day one it’s an estimate from your settings: tank size, hardness, iron, people at home and salt type. Every level check at least three days after the previous one gives it a real measurement of your household’s salt use, and recent checks count more than old ones. After four or five checks the prediction rests mostly on your own numbers rather than the defaults. The home screen always shows which stage you’re at: Estimate, Learning or Confident.

Does it work with salt sensors or smart softeners?

No. It doesn’t connect to any sensor, Wi-Fi softener or brand app, and it never needs to. It’s built for the ordinary softener most homes have. If your softener or a sensor already reports the salt level to your phone, you may not need this app.

I use potassium chloride instead of salt. Does that work?

Yes. Choose potassium chloride as your salt type. The starting estimate assumes you’ll use about 25% more by weight than sodium salt, and your level checks take over from there. The salt types guide in the app explains the trade-offs; your softener’s manual has the final word on its salt setting.

We’re on well water. Anything different?

Setup asks whether you’re on city water or a well, and for the iron level (leave it at 0 if you don’t know). Iron adds to the hardness the softener has to remove, so it raises the estimate. There’s no utility report for a well, so a hardness test strip or a lab test is the way to get your numbers. Well homes often use more salt than city homes, and the level checks will show it.

Is there an Android version?

Yes. The Android app has the same predictions, reminders with notification buttons, home-screen widget, maintenance and troubleshooting, and backups. Household sharing is iPhone and iPad only because it uses iCloud. A backup exported on an iPhone imports on Android.

Does everyone in my house have to buy Pro to share?

No. Only the person who sends the invite needs Pro. Everyone they invite can join, check the level and log refills with the free app. With Family Sharing, one purchase also covers your Apple family.

What does it cost?

The app is free, with no ads and no time limit. Pro is a single $2.99 payment for problem alerts, household sharing, the full maintenance library, the settings calculator, Insights, lock-screen and Control Center logging, multiple softeners and all seven troubleshooting guides. There’s no subscription.

More questions? support@wanderingdev.dev