How Proximity Notifications Changed How I Explore My City

Here's a confession. For the last two years, I walked past the café I saved from TikTok in August 2024. Every weekday. For commutes. I saved it, meant to go, forgot it existed, and walked 200 metres from its front door approximately 500 times without remembering.

I only figured this out because Nifl started pinging me about it.

This is the promise of proximity notifications — and until you live with them, it's hard to explain how transformative they are. Here's what I've learned.

The Problem They Solve

Human memory is bad at the "right moment" part of remembering.

You save a place. You have the intention. But the intention needs to resurface at the correct time — specifically, when you're physically near the place — for you to act on it.

Your brain doesn't do this. It has no spatial retrieval trigger. You can be 50 metres from a place you saved 3 months ago and feel zero pull toward it.

Proximity notifications fix this. They weaponise your location against your forgetfulness.

How Nifl's Version Works

The system is designed to be helpful, not annoying:

1. Quiet Nudges, Not Alarms

You get a small notification: "You're near [place name]." No sound. No vibration escalation. Just a gentle "hey, remember this?"

2. 48-Hour Cooldown

Once you've been notified about a place, you won't get another alert for that same place for 48 hours. Even if you walk past it 10 times.

3. Opt-In Per Collection

You can enable proximity notifications for specific collections only. "Date Night" and "Lunch Spots" yes. "Dream Hotels in Tokyo" no — that would be useless when you're in London.

4. Respects Quiet Hours

It won't ping you at 2am when you're walking home. Time-aware by default.

What It Actually Feels Like

The first week with proximity alerts is weird. You'll get notifications for places you have zero memory of saving.

"You're near Amba." What's Amba? Oh right, the Thai place from that TikTok three months ago. Good reminder. Keep walking.

"You're near Rosslyn Coffee." Ooh yeah, the flat white I saved from reels. Actually, I'll pop in.

By week 3, it's not notifications anymore — it's a quiet, always-on awareness of your city.

The Numbers

My own data (which I kept because I'm that kind of person):

• Pre-Nifl visits to saved places (first 6 months): 8 places, 74 saved. 10.8% rate.
• With Nifl + proximity alerts (next 6 months): 31 places, 89 saved. 34.8% rate.

Roughly a 3x increase, with no change in intent or effort. Just a better nudge system.

The Unexpected Side Effects

1. I Remember My Own Saves

Before: "Didn't I save something near here?" shrug After: "Oh right, the croissant place." actual memory

The alerts reinforce my own mental map of the city. Places start sticking.

2. I Save More Intentionally

Knowing an alert is going to remind me, I save places I'd actually like to visit — not FOMO saves. The quality of my bookmarks improved by accident.

3. I Explore More

Because I get nudged about nearby saves constantly, I pop into places without "planning" to. What used to be a weekend ritual (date night, lunch out) has become a weekly drumbeat of small visits.

4. I Walk Different Routes

I'd sometimes deliberately walk a longer route home because I knew I'd saved 3 places along it. Proximity alerts create incentive for exploration.

5. I've Rediscovered My Own Neighbourhood

I thought I knew my area. I'd saved 23 places within a 15-minute walk of my flat. I'd visited 4 of them. Now I've been to 17. My neighbourhood went from "familiar" to "still-being-discovered."

The Nuance

Proximity alerts aren't for every place.

What Works Well

• Cafés and restaurants you can walk into without a booking
• Coffee shops, bars, bookshops
• Small landmarks and viewpoints
• Quick-stop places (takeaway, sweet shops)

What Doesn't Work As Well

• Places that require booking weeks ahead
• Fine dining (you don't pop in)
• Tourist attractions you'd go to deliberately
• Places outside your normal radius

For these, use calendar planning instead. Proximity is for the casual, serendipitous half of your list.

The Privacy Angle

Proximity notifications need location access. I know some people are wary of this. A few notes:

• Nifl's location processing is on-device for proximity checks.
• You can turn it off per collection or globally.
• There's no continuous tracking server-side.

It's as privacy-respectful as iPhone weather or reminders.

Starting Your Own Experiment

If you want to try this:

1. Download Nifl.
2. Move 10–15 of your actually-saved TikTok places into a collection.
3. Turn on proximity alerts for that collection.
4. Walk around your normal routes for a week.
5. See what happens.

What'll happen: you'll realise how much of your own city you've been ignoring. You've been walking past your own saved places for months.

That gap — between intention and memory — is the whole point of proximity alerts.

Try Nifl — Free on iOS