Beacon app
Hacker ApprovedRanked 14 of 31 social networks by recommenders
People like the idea of lighting one beacon to alert all friends at once, without calls or notifications. Critics say the landing page looks AI-generated.
People like the idea of lighting one beacon to alert all friends at once, without calls or notifications. Critics say the landing page looks AI-generated.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 89%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Liked the one-to-many reach-out idea
“It works like a bat signal. Light your beacon and it reaches all your friends at once.”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Playa Phone” “It’s basically a one-to-many phone call that only one person can answer.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)” “I like the idea of being able to reach out and just say”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)” - Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
- Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
- Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
- Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
Works well for its purpose
“it's doing what I wanted which is helping me keep track of sessions that have completed”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Mux Beacon – macOS menu-bar inbox for Claude Code/Codex agents in tmux” “Overall it works really well!”
Comment from 2 Nov 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (November 2026)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Landing page looks AI-generated
“Super neat concept. One super low-lift way to improve its reception: change the styling of the landing page to not be blatant AI slop.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)”
Other social networks people recommend
The four most recommended other social networks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluesky | 317 | 401 | 44% | 12 | 1 yr5 owners | — |
| 289 | 1,338 | 18% | 13 | 14 yrs42 owners | — | |
| Mastodon | 273 | 220 | 55% | 12 | 3 yrs12 owners | — |
| X (formerly Twitter) | 264 | 984 | 21% | 13 | 13 yrs13 owners | — |
| Beacon appThis page | 16 | 2 | 89% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
24 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Overall it works really well!”
“drawn from much richer session data rather than what you remembered to note down”
“our enterprise product provides shared memory & findings across your entire company”
“We've tackled the core problem of agent telemetry normalization with our open-source project Beacon!”
“It works like a bat signal. Light your beacon and it reaches all your friends at once.”
“it's doing what I wanted which is helping me keep track of sessions that have completed”
“This is such a good alternative to current social media.”
“appalled at how cavalier they were about having all customer data in the same database”
“the no missed calls or notification part is also very interesting”
“But for a cognitively capable elderly person I think Beacon as-is actually solves for the use-case.”
“it leads to building a relationship more!”
“Sounds fun and idea is interesting”
“Super neat concept. One super low-lift way to improve its reception: change the styling of the landing page to not be blatant AI slop.”
“This is an interesting idea.”
“I like the idea of being able to reach out and just say”
“Ooh this is such a cool idea.”
“love the idea, would love a messaging version”
“it feels like magic to me”
“beacon, which unfortunately doesn't work too well”
“It’s basically a one-to-many phone call that only one person can answer.”
“Our core insight was that the next generation of agent security will move to the endpoint, where agents actually do the work.”
“It's open source, and I've been running it for the last ~8 months.”
“We built Beacon Protocol for AI agents to communicate without relying on centralized platforms.”
“It imports Darkadia data (yay! my immediate need)”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.