Creating Saalo is a publication about making two things. A phone-free box and companion app of the same name, and the time away that the product is made to protect. It’s written by Tommy Witbeck.
Tommy has a day job in marketing. Saalo is a side project, built after hours, mostly with Claude. The publication is an honest record of what that looks like. What the collaboration with modern AI tools can do, what it can’t, and what a non-engineer can actually ship in 2026.
Saalo the product is simple. You put the phone in the box, and the box counts the time you spent away from it. Over weeks and months, the time away compounds into a different relationship with the machine in your pocket.
The publication has two sections under one through-line.
Work. Notes on using Claude to build Saalo. App, site, hardware, design. Specific problems solved, specific problems not solved. Where Claude is load-bearing and where it isn’t. What still takes a human hand. For anyone curious about building their own thing with AI tools.
Life. Essays on phones, attention, and presence. Expansions of Saalo’s point of view. Cultural moments read, not chased.
The through-line is the same act applied twice. Making a product takes intention. Making time away from the phone takes intention. Both are about staying in charge of a powerful tool, rather than the other way around.
Posts go out weekly, most weeks. Missing a week is forgivable. Posting filler is not.
You can find Saalo at saalo.co.
