Reptile journal · offline-first
One animal, its whole story.
Squamy keeps the journal of your reptiles: feedings — refused ones included —, sheds, weight and the enclosure temperatures, day and night. Type (or dictate) the way you talk — “hot spot 34 in Rex” — and it does the parsing for you.
Your data stays on your device. The cloud is optional.
What it does
The journal your reptile can't keep for itself
The core features are free and work offline. Cloud automation and AI features are in the Premium plan.
An animal, not “three specimens”
Every animal is an individual: name, sex, date of birth, morph, origin, identifier. Its story — feedings, weigh-ins, sheds — stays its own, and it doesn't vanish if you tear the setup down one day: deleting an enclosure does not delete who lived in it. Animals that are no longer with you stay on the record, counted separately.
Feeding log
What it ate, when, what size, whether it was dusted with calcium or vitamins. Plus the two data points that matter more than a meal taken: the refusal and the regurgitation. Squamy tracks the acceptance rate over the last ten feedings, which is how you see a trend instead of an episode.
And logging it is as simple as saying it: “Miranda ate 3 roaches and 4 waxworms”, typed or dictated. Squamy picks out the animal, the prey and the amounts, shows you what it understood and writes only after you confirm — one prey per row, so next time you know which of the two was refused. When a sentence is beyond it, it says so, and only if you ask the AI has a go (Premium). And from the card itself, “Ate” opens the sheet to say what — several foods at once if that is how it went; “Refused” and “Regurgitated” stay one tap.
Sheds
Log every shed and how it went: complete, in pieces, or retained (toes and tail tip, where retained skin does real damage). If incomplete sheds keep happening the app says so and points at humidity as the first suspect, instead of leaving you to reconstruct it from memory months later.
Weight and growth
The most honest number you have: a reptile hides illness for weeks, a scale doesn't. Log the weight in grams (or the length), see the chart and the changes over time. Free, offline, and inside the backup.
Natural-language input
Type — or dictate — “humidity 65 in the tropical” and Squamy recognises parameter, value, unit and enclosure. Deterministic parser, entirely on-device, offline too. One tap to confirm. And if a sentence stumps it, Premium hands it to the AI AI.
Three temperatures, not one
Hot spot, cool side and night, plus humidity, UV index and substrate temperature: the thermal gradient isn't a detail, it is husbandry. A single number would describe any enclosure badly. Charts with the target band, an alert when a value leaves the range, and every parameter with its own what it is · how to measure it · typical values card.
Your thermostat sends the readings Premium
If you already own a WiFi thermostat or hygrometer, there is no reason to retype the numbers: Squamy gives you a key and your setup sends the reading. Works with Home Assistant, ESPHome, a Raspberry Pi, or anything that can make an HTTP request.
⚠️ Not a SmartLife integration: we open the door and give you the key, the piece that connects your sensor is written by you. The why — and ready-made examples — are in the guide.
AI Assistant AI Premium
Herpetology questions in general, in your own words: “how often does an adult ball python eat?”, “what UVI does a bearded dragon need?”, “what substrate for a leopard gecko?”. It answers with practical advice and threads to pull, in a dedicated tab, and the text appears as it's written. The most common questions have a ready answer: instant, available offline and without spending your daily allowance. It only sends the enclosure profile (name, type, size, age): never your readings or your journal.
Enclosure Doctor AI Premium
Describe the problem — “the shed is coming off in pieces”, “it has refused food for three weeks” — and the AI looks at that enclosure's data (recent parameters, out-of-range values, feedings, sheds, activities) to suggest the most likely causes and what to check. It's a chat: answer its questions and sharpen the diagnosis. With the sheet for the Doctor you tell it once how the enclosure is set up, the lamps and past problems, and it rereads it at every diagnosis. Answers can also be read aloud. It is not a vet: these are hypotheses to verify, and a serious illness needs a vet experienced with exotics.
Health check AI Premium
The Doctor looks at an enclosure; this looks at one animal. It lines up weight, meal outcomes, sheds and its enclosure's temperatures and answers with the signals found in the data, hypotheses and steps to take, with an urgency level. The signals at the top are not written by the AI: the app computes them from your own numbers — a regurgitation, a 10% weight drop, two retained sheds in a row, four consecutive refusals outside brumation — so the check still answers when no model is available, and says so. It is not a diagnosis: it helps you decide whether, and how fast, to see a vet experienced with exotics.
Reminders & maintenance
Feedings, cleaning, supplements, soaks, weigh-ins, misting, substrate changes, vet visits — with recurrence (custom too), an end date for treatment courses, and your own notes. Didn't do it? Postpone or skip it in one tap, without logging work you never did. And the reminder nobody remembers on their own: the UVB tube replacement, which keeps making light for months after it stopped emitting useful UV — looking at it tells you nothing.
Enclosures, with real dimensions
Setup type — arid, tropical, temperate, aquatic turtles, paludarium — and internal dimensions in centimetres (width × depth × height), because length is what decides whether a thermal gradient actually fits. Features stack on top of the type: bioactive, UVB, misting system, rack. Squamy switches on the parameters and typical ranges for that type by itself.
Species catalogue
One hundred and twenty-one reference cards — five groups, forty-nine families — with temperatures, humidity, UVB zone, diet and habitat, to start from when you add an animal. Bilingual and readable offline. Species missing? Add it by hand. They are a starting point, not a protocol: on a living animal, always cross-check them with a veterinary source.
Shareable animal card
An image ready to post in a group or on a forum: weight, last feeding, how many of the last ten it took, last shed — and the enclosure temperatures in the same image, because the first reply to “why won't it eat?” is always “check your temperatures”. Written for people who don't have the app: units always spelled out and target values next to the numbers. Before sharing you can drop the name, the environment or the targets. Free for everyone.
Breeding
For those who produce and don't only keep: live food cultures (crickets, dubia roaches, mealworms, black soldier fly larvae, fruit flies, isopods, springtails), where harvesting doesn't close a colony — continuous ones stay open and, if you neglect them, the app says “needs upkeep”, not “start over”; and clutches with incubation: eggs laid and found fertile at candling, temperature and humidity, expected days, hatching and first meal. ⚠️ Incubation temperature is not a detail: in many species it decides the hatchlings' sex, and after hatching it can't be reconstructed. At hatching, the hatchlings' records are created in one go. The husbandry cards for each culture are free and offline; the log is Premium.
A tutorial that sticks around
On first launch a quick tour explains how the app is laid out — always skippable. Then “First steps” stays: a checklist that ticks itself off as you create your first enclosure and log your first reading, plus small coach marks on the less obvious spots. Replay it from Menu → Tutorial, and it updates itself: when an important feature lands you're shown where it is, tagged “New”.
A sample to look at
On first launch you can open a sample enclosure: a leopard gecko with two months of feedings, weigh-ins, sheds and readings — plus something that's off, like two refused meals and the cool side below range. It shows the app full before you've logged anything. It never leaves your phone, sends no notifications, and goes away with one tap.
Care sheet for your sitter
Going away for a few days? Pick the dates and Squamy prepares a PDF with feedings day by day — with “ate / refused” boxes — the maintenance falling in those days and the things not to do, written for someone who has never kept a reptile. Send it in a chat or print it. Free, generated on the device.
Notes, inventory and expenses
A logbook, a store of equipment, food and supplements, and a record of what you spend: all in one place. Recommended products and built-in Amazon search: link the item and reorder it in a tap.
Wherever the AI mark appears, an artificial intelligence is involved: the answers are AI-generated and labelled as such in the app, and they are general guidance to be verified. AI features are off by default and need a dedicated consent from the Account screen; Assistant, Doctor and reading interpretation share the same daily allowance.
Three steps
As simple as talking
Set the enclosure up
Setup type, internal dimensions in centimetres and the features it has. Squamy switches on the parameters and recommended ranges so you can start straight away.
Introduce the animals
One by one, with name, sex, birth date and morph. From the species catalogue or by hand. From here on, each one has its own story.
Log it and hold the gradient
A feeding, a shed, a weigh-in, a temperature: typed or dictated, in seconds. Squamy follows the trends and warns you when something leaves the range.
Squamy by the numbers
A growing community
Frequently asked
How things are done in Squamy
The most common questions, answered step by step. You'll find the same FAQ inside the app.
How do I create an enclosure?
Open the Enclosures tab and tap “Add enclosure”. Give it a name (e.g. “Rex's arboreal”), pick the type of setup (arid, tropical, temperate, aquatic turtle, paludarium), enter the internal dimensions in centimetres (width × depth × height) and — if you need them — add the features: bioactive, UVB, misting system, rack. Then save: Squamy already switches on the parameters and target ranges typical of that kind of enclosure.
The type is a single choice, features add to it: a bioactive tropical enclosure with UVB is “Tropical” + “Bioactive” + “UVB”, not one instead of the other.
The dimensions are not decoration: length is what decides whether the enclosure can hold a real thermal gradient, meaning a basking spot and a cool side genuinely far apart.
How do I log a reading by typing the way I talk?
Open “Add a measurement” — from the grid menu at the top, or from the enclosure whose values you are logging — and type naturally, e.g. “basking spot 34 in Rex's” or “humidity 65”. Squamy recognises parameter, value, unit and enclosure, converts to the reference unit and shows you its interpretation with a confidence score. Confirm with a tap and it's saved. Everything runs on-device, even offline.
Can I log readings by voice?
Yes. In “Add a measurement” tap the microphone icon and dictate the value (e.g. “humidity sixty in the tropical”). Voice recognition is the operating system's on-device engine; the recognised text goes through the same parser as typed input. It needs the microphone permission. Where dictation isn't available (e.g. Windows) the app tells you and you can type instead.
Where do I see charts and trends?
Open an enclosure and tap a parameter: you'll see the trend chart with the target band highlighted. The enclosure dashboard shows at a glance how many parameters are balanced and which are out of range, with an alert when a value leaves the limits you set.
How do I set a reminder or a maintenance task?
In the Activities tab tap “Add” and pick a type: feeding, cleaning, UVB lamp replacement, supplement, soak, weighing, misting, substrate change, vet visit or a free-form reminder. You can attach a product and a dose, set a recurrence (custom too) and, for treatment courses, an end date. The Note field takes the details that don't fit in a title (e.g. “mist the warm side only”, “weigh before the meal”): you see them right on the activity card. When it falls due you get a local notification on the device.
The reminder nobody remembers unprompted is the UVB tube swap: it keeps making light for months after it stops making useful UV, so looking at it tells you nothing. Set it as a recurrence and let the app carry it.
How do I log a feeding by saying it in words?
In the Animals list, right under “Add animal”, there is a field where you can type or dictate the feeding the way you would say it: “Miranda ate 3 roaches and 4 waxworms”. Squamy picks out the animal by name, the prey with their amounts, the outcome (eaten, refused, regurgitated, partial), the supplement (“dusted with calcium”) and the day (“yesterday”).
Then it shows you what it understood and stops: animal, outcome, every prey with its own amount and the date can all be fixed right there, and the rows reach the log only through “Confirm and save”. That confirmation is not a formality: the feeding log is the run that tells you an animal is going off food, and a wrong row in it is worth less than no row at all.
Every prey becomes its own feeding: “3 roaches and 4 waxworms” are two rows, so next time you know which of the two was refused. If a prey is not in the app's vocabulary, type it in the confirmation card: from then on you will find it among the suggested ones. And when you only need to say “it ate”, the quickest way is still the one-tap feeding on the animal's card.
When a sentence is written in a way it cannot make sense of, Squamy says so and offers a button: “Interpret with AI”. A button and not an automatic shortcut, on purpose — the AI needs a connection, it is a Premium feature and it sends the sentence to an external service, so it only runs if you ask, after the consent you give once (and can withdraw from Account). What the AI returns lands in the same confirmation card: no row is written without you looking at it.
The on-device interpretation happens on your device, not on an external service: it works offline and it is free. Dictation needs the microphone permission; where speech recognition is unavailable (some browsers, some computers) the field still takes typing.
How do I show my animal in a group or ask for advice?
Open the animal and tap Animal card at the top. The app builds an image with its history — latest weight and length, last meal (with the prey and how it went), how many of the last ten meals it accepted, last shed and its quality — plus the enclosure's temperatures and humidity. Share it wherever you like: WhatsApp, a Facebook group, a forum, stories, or save it to your gallery.
The environment sits in the same image on purpose: the first answer to “why won't it eat?” is always “check your temperatures”, and sending two separate images would mean a second round of messages.
The card is meant to be read by someone who doesn't have the app: units always spelled out, target values next to the numbers, and out-of-range values marked in words too, not only by colour. A single refusal is not flagged as a problem (reptiles refuse while shedding, in winter, before laying): a regurgitation, a stuck shed and a run of missed meals are.
Before sharing you can leave out the animal's name, the enclosure's environment or the target values: the choice is remembered for next time. The preview you see is the image that gets shared, and it contains only that: no account data, no location. It is free for everyone.
Does Squamy work offline? Where is my data stored?
Yes: Squamy is offline-first. Your enclosure data is stored on the device and that is the source of truth. No account is needed to use it. The cloud is optional and only matters if you want to sync across devices.
How do I turn on syncing across devices?
Open the Account section (profile icon) and sign in with email and password, with Google, or — on iPhone and iPad — with Sign in with Apple. With an account you can start cloud sync. For your first 14 days after signing up it is automatic for everyone: whatever you log goes up on its own. After that, on the Free plan it becomes manual (“Sync now”), while on Premium it stays automatic in the background. Your local data remains the source of truth, so the app works in full even with no connection.
Is there a tutorial? How do I replay it?
Yes. On first launch Squamy shows a short run of cards explaining how the app is laid out: where you create an enclosure, what the four bottom tabs are for, and where the AI lives. You can skip it at any point with the button in the top right.
Two helpers stay behind afterwards. At the top of the enclosure list you'll find “First steps”, a small checklist that ticks itself off as you create your first enclosure, log your first reading, set a reminder and try the Assistant; it disappears once complete, or you can close it with the ✕. And the first time you reach a spot that isn't obvious — the enclosure menu, the dictation microphone — a callout points it out: “Got it” closes it, “Skip” turns them all off.
To replay it: Tools menu (the grid icon at the top) → Tutorial, or Account → Replay the tutorial. It starts again from the first card and the callouts come back.
When an important new feature ships, the tutorial updates itself: instead of replaying the whole run you'll just get the callout for what's new, with a “New” tag next to the title.
What is the “Enclosure doctor”?
It is an AI-assisted diagnosis (a Premium feature): from the enclosure menu open Enclosure doctor, describe the problem in your own words (e.g. “the shed comes off in pieces and the toes stay stuck” or “it has been refusing food for three weeks”) and the AI answers with hypotheses ranked by plausibility, useful questions and concrete steps.
What sets it apart from a generic AI is that Squamy knows your enclosure's history: it automatically attaches a summary of your data (recent parameters, out-of-range values, feedings, sheds, activities) so the advice fits your case. It is opt-in with its own consent, off by default (revocable from your account) and only answers about reptiles and terrariums — it is not a general assistant. It is not a vet: these are hypotheses to verify, and a serious illness needs a vet experienced with exotics.
Transparency (AI Act): answers are generated by an artificial intelligence and marked as such in the interface.
What is the health check?
It is the check the app runs on one animal: open its record and tap Health check at the top. Squamy lines up what it knows about it — the basics, the weight curve, meal outcomes, sheds and its enclosure's temperatures and humidity — and answers with the signals it found, hypotheses, useful questions and steps to take, with an urgency level.
⚠️ The part at the top, the signals in the data, is not written by the AI: the server computes it from your own numbers (a regurgitation in the last 30 days, a 10% weight drop from the three-month peak, two retained sheds in a row, four consecutive refusals outside brumation). That is why the check still answers when no AI model is available — and it says so, instead of pretending all is well.
If the AI plays it down and the numbers don't, the numbers win: urgency has a floor the model cannot lower.
You can leave the “what did you notice” field empty: the signals show up anyway.
⚠️ It is not a diagnosis and does not replace a vet: no app can examine an animal. It helps you decide whether and how fast to take it there. It is a Premium feature and needs your consent to send data to a third-party AI service, which you can withdraw at any time from Account.
What is the “AI assistant” and how is it different from the “Enclosure doctor”?
The AI assistant (a Premium feature) is the Assistant tab at the bottom of the screen: ask it anything about reptile keeping in general — “how often does an adult ball python eat?”, “what UVI does a bearded dragon need?”, “what substrate for a leopard gecko?” — and it answers in words, with a few practical tips and follow-ups to continue with.
How it differs from the Enclosure doctor: the Assistant answers in general, the Doctor looks at your enclosure. If the problem is there — incomplete sheds, refused meals, odd readings — go to the Enclosure doctor (from the enclosure menu, or the button inside the Assistant): it reads recent parameters, out-of-range values, animals and activities for that enclosure and ranks hypotheses by plausibility.
What gets sent: your question and, at most, the profile of your enclosures (name, type, dimensions, age) — never the readings or the log, which stay on the device.
Where do I download Squamy?
Squamy isn't downloadable yet. The app works, but it has no store listing anywhere: the copy proofread and the species-card review come first, and the store releases come after that.
To be notified, write to [email protected]: we'll send one message when there's something to install, and we don't use that address for anything else.
How it will be distributed. On Android and on iPhone and iPad it will be a native app, free and usable without an account. From computers and tablets you'll also be able to use it straight from the browser, with nothing to install; from a phone browser you'll be able to add it to your Home screen. The native Windows version comes later.
⚠️ Two things depend on the operating system and won't be there in the browser: reminder notifications and voice dictation.
Your data will move between devices only if you sign in with an account: without one it stays on the device where you entered it (see the entry about accounts and syncing).
Pricing
You'll start free, and you can stay there
Whatever runs on your device is free forever, manual sync included. Cloud automation (which costs us money) is in the Premium plan.
Free
- Unlimited enclosures and animals
- Data stored on your device + manual cloud sync (with an account, whenever you start it)
- Feeding, shed and weight logs
- Natural-language input and dictation (on-device)
- Charts, trends and a dashboard with out-of-range alerts
- Reminders and local notifications (with postpone, skip and history)
- Species catalogue and live-food culture cards
- Shareable animal card
- Notes, inventory and expenses
- Care sheet for your sitter, as a PDF
- 2 free AI tries, on your own animals' data
- Basic/Expert levels · English & Italian
Premium not on sale yet
- Everything in Free, plus:
- Automatic background sync, multi-device
- Full data export (CSV + JSON backup)
- Import/restore: updates your data, never duplicates it
- AI Assistant: general herpetology questions, in your own words, in a dedicated tab AI
- Enclosure Doctor: describe a problem (a shed that won't come off, refused food) and the AI, looking at that enclosure's data, suggests the most likely causes and what to check AI
- When you type or dictate a reading the app can't parse, the AI takes over AI
- Breeding: the log of live-food cultures by batch and of clutches
- Shared enclosure: the same enclosure with other people, each with their own role
- API and integrations: your sensors send readings on their own
- No ad banners (on Android; iOS and web have none)
- Brumation: a window on the animal, with feeding reminders going quiet (coming)
- Advanced trend analysis (coming)
- Photo album (coming)
⚠️ Premium is not on sale yet, and the prices above are the planned ones: Squamy has no store listing anywhere. When it does, the subscription will be activated from the Android app (Account → Premium) through Google Play, with a Squamy account, and it will apply on every device where you sign in with that account. The Free plan will stay free forever. AI features will need your consent (from the Account screen) and will have a daily allowance, shared between Assistant and Doctor. Prices may vary by country and currency.
Availability
You can use it now, in your browser
Squamy is online as a web app: open it and use it, with nothing to install and no store to wait for. Native apps for Android and iPhone come later — and starting now costs you nothing later, because your data lives in your account and comes down on its own.
⚠️ Two things the browser can't do, and it's a browser limitation rather than a choice: reminder notifications and voice dictation. Both arrive with the native apps. Everything else — animals, feedings, sheds, weight, readings — already works, and works offline: your data lives on the device, and the account only exists so you can find it again elsewhere.
We'll write once, when there's something to install — no newsletter, no other use of that address.
Support the project
Squamy will be free, but not free to run
I build Squamy in my spare time and I want to keep it free, with no compromises on privacy. If the idea convinces you, buy me a coffee: it helps cover the costs and grow the app.
- squama /ˈskwaː.ma/ noun, Lat.
- The scale: the plate that covers a reptile, and that comes off all in one piece when things are going the way they should.
- squamy /ˈskweɪ.mi/ adjective
- “Covered in scales”. Which is to say, what you keep at home.
Lat. squama
Sister projects
If reptiles aren't the only thing at home
Squamy has an older sibling: Gurglee, the same journal for aquariums. Same approach — offline, free, your data stays yours — and the same way of logging readings by writing the way you speak. People who keep a terrarium very often keep a tank too, and the other way round.
Aquariums
Gurglee
Parameters, livestock, maintenance and the nitrogen cycle. It's the app Squamy grew out of.
Two separate apps, not one with two modes: a tank and a terrarium have little in common to measure, and mixing them would have made both worse. Accounts are separate too — Gurglee needs its own.
The journal your reptile can't keep for itself
Free, offline, no account. We'll write to you when it can be installed.