Silo Reviews

App was working well, until I tried to end a session and it tallied up my hour of work ... but then it just kept congratulating me and counting additional hours, with no way to stop Silo on my watch. It was quite frustrating, and I had to uninstall Silo from my watch. Very frustrated - I've never asked for a refund for an app before, and hope there's a fix for this. Please let us know.

I purchased Silo for a dollar, and as soon as i opened it, it wouldn't let me do anything taskwise unless i pay for a monthly subscription! Plus, the pomodoro timer does not show you the current time (not even sure if its working), and if you pause the timer, you're not sure if you're actually pausing or resetting the timer. Very Frustrating!

No complications without a subscription.

No sync between watch and phone.

One star. I don’t like “creative” descriptions that avoid the truth.

Despite removing and reinstalling Silo , Silo is buggy and inconsistent. Some days it works, others it doesn’t.
At the start of most days, before I’ve even used Silo , the Apple Watch version claims I’ve already done 1.5 hours of work which a obviously untrue. I don’t care about tracking daily totals so this isn’t a big deal but this is probably frustrating to those who do use such a feature.

The various Apple Watch complications often don’t refresh the time remaining in a session which defeats the point of raising the watch to monitor the time remaining. These should update instantly, like any other complication.

Often the Apple Watch doesn’t vibrate when it’s supposed to despite having “prominent haptic feedback” enabled and the vibration pattern often isn’t very strong anyways. A suggestion for a future update might be to allow configuration of different vibration patterns as the same vibration patterns as every other Watch app are easy to ignore. Perhaps even differentiate between working sessions and break sessions? I use “silent mode” and “do not disturb” on my iPhone when working however the Apple Watch should still vibrate unless in theatre mode.

I gave Silo a try and it just doesn't seem to work very well. There was no haptic feedback for breaks and back to work and then in the log it said I had done 40 hours of work that day. How is that even possible? I had done 2 sessions of 25 minutes with a 5 minute break and I guess it's that somehow equals 40 hours

I would very much like this to work but it seems half baked at this point. Haven't seen what happened with this on Planet of the Apps yet, but the execution so far is not too good.

I've been using for a few days and it's been very glitchy, despite uninstalling and reinstalling.
- the tracker is hit or miss. Usually it doesn't register completed sessions.
- there's no auto pause feature whereby you have to manually start new session or break. That means you can unwittingly do a couple of sessions without touching anything even though you've been on an unanticipated break.

I since founds lots of pomodoro Apps that support Apple Watch, but none but one have a complication support. Also all their haptic feedback is not working well.

The May 22 update was supposed to have fixed the craziness at the end of a cycle. I have not been able to test this because just like another reviewer (21m21) I don't get any haptic feedback any more. So at this point Silo is not working for me.

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
This is the first Pomodoro app I found that has Apple Watch integration which is a huge plus because notifications on the phone are not always reliable. When listening to music in my work computer I miss iPhone notifications entirely. The Watch works well.

Why only 3 stars? On March 10 a user reported a bug with the Watch app going crazy after completing a set. The developer promised a fix in the next update. I just bought Silo today having seen that there was an update. Alas, it is still not fixed.

Giving 3 stars as benefit of doubt but I got no haptic or audio alert when finished on first use. Also, if you glance at the screen it takes about 2 seconds to update the remaining time. I've had both of these issues with other Pomodoro apps. I'm now convinced that WatchOS just can't handle a simple third-party timer app, as nobody can seem to make one. Back to using an app on my phone, as the push alert goes to the watch just fine.

UPDATE: I was able to install on the watch after power cycling the watch and then the iPhone.

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I can see it under notifications and it is set to mirror the iPhone. It does not load into watch. Refund?

Hi. Description says that there is early bird offer - $0.99 one time payment for pro.
But in app there is only monthly 1.99$ subscription.
Please suggest is offer still available?

So far, I really like Silo. The look and functionality is great. But I find that I’m not getting notifications at the end of sessions. Often, I’ll go to check how much time is left in a session only to find that it ended a while ago and I wasn’t notified. :(

Silo has drastically improved my daily life. It helps to increase my focus at work/home and having Silo manage this task is one less thing I have to worry about day to day. Whomever developed Silo is a genius. I would have given 10 stars had that been an option.

Was looking for an app with great watch features and thus has it all. Would love to have an option to not automatically roll into a break or session without me acknowledging (I sometimes miss the happiness feedback and miss the beginning of a session)

- the way the subscription is present is a turn off. Find a way that is less frustrating to new users. I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out the features only to realize they can’t be interacted with at all. I thought Silo was broken.

- add a numerical timer. I like the aesthetic, but I also like to know the exact time left.

- sync the Apple Watch and iPhone app. I set a timer on one, the timer should be going on the other. That’s the deal breaker for me, personally.

Giving five stars because previous reviews are unfair and Silo is one of the better pomodoro apps I’ve tried, just dragged down by its subscription presentation and the lack of a numerical display. It’s been more than a year so an update is unlikely, but I hope you consider the above if you do update it.

I love Silo , it does what it claims to do and it does it well. Only thing I would want -are complications for the newer watch faces (had to dig to find it only to see it was on a few older ones) and a way to see a countdown timer rather than the ticks Silo currently has. Thanks a ton!

Silo feels like a new organ of my body that gives me superpowers. It isn't even hard anymore for me to stop being lazy and start getting my stuff done. It works just the way it should: set your routine on your phone, beam it instantly to your watch, and then tap the big red button, and you're working. The watch will remind you if you drift off.

My first exposure to the timed break technique was as a quintet of ten minute + two minute work-break periods per hour. this app works well as a Watch-implementation for that, and even supports the 52+17 period that Nicholas Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts, and Zhichun Jenny Ying found most effective in their 2013 experiments.

Pause, resume, skip are all on the wrist.

Less risk of distraction from Watch than from iOS, too.

The most recent update did the trick--I haven't had a problem of any sort. Kudos to the developer for being so responsive and quick to find a fix.

I use Silo everyday. It's simple and impossible to get distracted by (with the update), which is ideal if you're easily side-tracked like me. It's also way more customizable than some of the other apps I looked at.

I'm going to leave my original review to draw attention to the developer's attentiveness. Increased from 4 stars to 5.

**Original**

This is a simple and effective app that does what I want it to.

Most of the time.

The most recent update has fixed the crazy end-of-cycle bug that previous reviews mentioned for about 50% of the time. Completing a cycle now induces the equal parts of panic and adrenaline of a game of roulette--rather than the previous sense of impending doom. It's not a totally catastrophic bug anymore, just quite annoying.

It seems, however, that the most recent update wrecked havoc on the haptic feedback tap marking each focus/break transition. It's the primary reason I chose this time tracker over others. My hope is that the developer, who seems fairly responsive to reviews, can rectify the haptic bug quickly.

Bearing in mind the unfortunate haptic hiccup of the most recent update (and the moderate success of the other bug's fix), I nevertheless recommend Silo to folks looking for an efficient, customizable tool for time management.

Free version is great and met all my Pomodoro needs!

I have been using Silo for a while and have really liked integrating it into my workflow. In the past two weeks the haptic notification has been unreliable and skips between the different cycles without signaling me. Once this issue is resolved it gets a 5 star rating from me.

Update: the most recent update has resolved these issues