Notimaxx: the fake notification app for your own phone
By Larpmaxx teamUpdated
Notimaxx sends repeating notifications to your own phone, shaped like a text from anyone, a bank deposit, a transfer or a store order, with the names, amounts, wording and timing you choose.
Notimaxx is a small, deliberately narrow tool. Four kinds of notification, one timer, and alerts that go nowhere except the device in your hand. It is for entertainment.
What Notimaxx is
A timer that posts browser notifications on your own phone. You pick a kind, fill in the few details that kind needs, and it keeps posting them on the gap you set until you press stop.
Because these are real notifications, your browser has to agree to them first. If you have not granted permission yet, a strip near the top offers an Allow button, and if notifications are blocked the start button stays greyed out until you change that in your own settings. The alerts arrive on the device running the app and nowhere else.
There are two screens and that is the whole interface. The first is configuration: the four kinds across the top, then a preview that changes as you type, so you see the alert before one fires. Press start and it swaps to a run display: how many have been sent, how long it has been running, the interval, and a stop button.
It also installs as its own app. On first open it asks for a name, lets you upload an icon, and walks you through adding it to your home screen, after which it launches full screen from that icon. On iPhone, the app you install is the one that posts the notifications, so each one carries the name and icon you chose there.
The four kinds
Each kind opens with the example below already filled in, and every word of it can be changed.
| Kind | What it looks like | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| Texts | Jordan you up? car's outside | The sender's name and the message. |
| Deposits | Deposit received $2,450.00 was deposited to your checking account. | The title, the currency, the amounts and the account name. |
| Transfers | Payment received Alex sent you $500.00 | The sender's name, the currency and the amounts. |
| Orders | Order #1000 $39.99, 1 item | The currency, the prices with a quantity each, and the store name. |
Orders are the kind Notimaxx started with, and they still read the same way: the title is “Order #” followed by a number, and the line underneath opens with the amount and the item count, as above, and ends with your store name.
The settings
Every kind shares the same few controls, and this table is all of them.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Kind | Texts, Deposits, Transfers or Orders, picked at the top. Each kind keeps its own settings, so switching between them loses nothing. |
| Name | The sender for texts and transfers, the account for deposits, the store for orders. Free text. |
| Amounts | Up to ten rows, each one an amount you type, plus an item quantity for orders. Every notification picks one row at random, so a run looks varied rather than looped. Eight currencies, picked as a button, set the symbol in front. |
| Title and text | An “Edit title and text” option opens both lines of any kind for free editing. Placeholders fill in as each notification fires: {amount} for one of your amounts, {name} for the name above, and {n} for a number that goes up by one each time. Orders add {items} for the quantity. |
| Interval | A slider covering 500 milliseconds up to 60 seconds, so anything from an unbroken stream to one alert a minute. |
Your settings for each kind are saved in the browser on that device, so they are still there the next time you open it.
The order number is not yours to set. It begins at 1000 on every run and adds one per notification, which is what makes a sequence read as one busy afternoon rather than a pile of unrelated pings.
What it is for
Filming, mostly, and it works differently from a screenshot. A still image has to be shown to the camera; a notification interrupts whatever you were already doing. Set a slow interval, start it, then film something completely mundane while your phone keeps insisting that the money is rolling in. The step-by-step guide covers building the character those interruptions belong to, and larpmaxxing explains the wider bit this is a prop for. Cryptomaxx is the screenshot half of the same idea, for when you want a screen rather than a sound.
The other use is in person, with people who already know what your phone is doing. Half a second between alerts turns a dinner table into a running gag in about ten seconds, and it only works because everybody there is in on it.
That is all larp notifications are: alerts staged on your own phone for a video or a bit, for people who know they are part of it. Nobody else receives them, and they stop when you press stop.
So, plainly: these are notifications on your own phone and they are never evidence of a sale, a payment, a deposit, a transfer or a message anyone sent. Never show them to someone as proof of anything. Not to a buyer deciding whether to trust you, not to a lender or an investor sizing up your revenue, not to someone waiting on money you owe them. A number you typed into a settings form is not income, and an alert that says money arrived is not money. Putting a fabricated alert in front of someone who does not know it was fabricated, to get money, trust or access out of them, is fraud in most places, whatever it was called when you set it up.
Pricing
Notimaxx is not sold on its own; every plan includes it, along with the wallet and the whole app pack. Current prices:
- Starter at $10 a week
- Premier at $30 a month
- Lifetime at $200, paid once
What each tier includes is shown beside its price after you create an account and try the demo, and checkout is handled by Stripe.
Questions people ask
Does anyone else get these notifications?
No. They are posted by the browser on the device the app is open on. Nothing leaves it and no message is delivered to another person.
Can I write my own notification text?
Yes. Texts are free text from the start: the sender's name is the title and your message is the line under it. Every kind also has the “Edit title and text” option, which opens both lines for free editing, with {amount}, {name} and {n} filled in as each one fires.
How does it work on Android?
Android browsers only show a web page's notifications through a service worker, a small background script the page registers. Notimaxx registers one for its own page and posts every notification through it. It keeps no copies of pages and fetches nothing; it exists to post the notifications. As on iPhone, they come while the app is open.
Why do they stop on my iPhone?
iOS suspends the page shortly after you switch away from it, which stops the timer. The app says so on the configuration screen and suggests keeping Notification Center pulled down while a run is going, which holds the page awake.
Can I choose the sound?
Not inside the app. It uses whatever alert sound your device is set to, and the configuration screen points you at your own phone settings if you want to change that.
Can I start the order number somewhere else?
No. Orders always begin at 1000 and count up by one from there. The number is only in the title because the default order title uses {n}, so you can take it out with “Edit title and text”.
Do I need a plan to use it?
Yes. Without an active plan the app opens on a prompt to choose one rather than on the scheduler.