Rating: Excellent
Strong Points: Users can send updates to anyone even if they don’t have the app
Weak Points: None
Platform: iPhone/iPad
Cost: Free
A major consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is that most of us have had to learn how to conduct some (or all) of our daily work from home. While the lack of a commute is great, the unexpected interruptions from family members, roommates, and pets is not ideal. Oh Bother attempts to solve that issue by allowing housemates to update each other as to whether they are “botherable” or not. The app allows users to update their status as “botherable” or “unbotherable,” add context as to why that’s the case, and send their status out to their housemates so that everyone is on the same page. For example, if you’re “unbotherable” because you have an important video call, you can set that as your status and let your housemates know how long you need them to keep the volume down. Although the app won’t be much help for alerting your pets to stay out of your camera range, Oh Bother is a great tool to make working from home a little easier for everyone.
