How to do it, step by step

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.

It's the date the enclosure has been running since. You set it when you create the enclosure (or later, via Edit enclosure): if you don't change it, it defaults to today, so remember to correct it if you're logging an enclosure that's been running for a while.

It mainly helps the Enclosure doctor: the enclosure's age changes the hypotheses, because the same value or symptom reads differently in a freshly started enclosure (still cycling, unstable biology) versus a mature one. Setting the right date makes the diagnosis more accurate.

Open the enclosure from the Enclosures tab, then use the top menu to edit it (name, type, dimensions, features such as “Bioactive”, aliases) or delete it. Deletion is a soft-delete: the enclosure disappears from the app but the removal still syncs, keeping your devices aligned.

Aliases are alternate names you use for an enclosure when speaking or typing (e.g. “Rex's”, “the big arboreal”). When you log a reading in natural language, Squamy uses the name and aliases to figure out which enclosure you mean, so you don't have to pick it every time.

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.

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.

Short abbreviations are ambiguous (“temp” on its own does not say whether you mean the basking spot, the cool side or the night) and numbers can use commas or dots. That's why Squamy always shows the interpretation — “Basking spot · 34 °C · Rex's arboreal” — with a confirm step: any parser mistake is fixed with a tap before saving.

Open an enclosure, pick the parameter and tap “Add reading”: choose value, unit and the measurement date/time (which can differ from now). Multiple readings per day are allowed. Each value is also converted to the parameter's reference unit for the charts.

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.

Each enclosure has its own ranges. Open the enclosure, go to manage parameters and set the target min and max and the preferred unit for that parameter. When a reading falls outside that range, the enclosure flags it as “out of range”.

Squamy tracks the parameters that matter in a terrarium: basking spot, cool side, night temperature, humidity, UV index and substrate temperature, each with its units and conversions.

Three temperatures, not one, because the thermal gradient is the husbandry: a single number would describe any enclosure badly and make target ranges useless. Each enclosure follows only what it needs: on creation Squamy turns on the ones typical of its type, and from parameter management you can switch the others on or off and change the ranges. In Basic mode you see the essentials, in Expert also UV index and substrate temperature. Every parameter has its own what it is · how to measure it · typical values card, from the ⓘ icon.

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.

In the Activities tab tap “Done” on the activity: the action is recorded in the log and a recurring activity automatically advances to its next due date (or turns off if it was one-off or at the end of its course).

If you did not do it, tap “⋯” next to “Done”:

• Postpone — move the due date to tomorrow, in 3 days, in a week or to a date you pick. The recurrence stays the same: later occurrences start from the new date, and the notification is rescheduled automatically.
• Skip this time — jump straight to the next due date. It is not written to the log, because the activity wasn't done: that keeps your maintenance history honest.

Either way, “Undo” in the message at the bottom puts everything back. The same actions are available on the home screen, in an enclosure's Activities page and in the Diet section.

Under “Recent maintenance”: from the Activities tab (at the bottom of the list) or from an enclosure's Activities page via “see all”. It is a separate section from the tasks still to do.

Entries are grouped by day and, within the day, by type (feeding, cleaning, UVB change, supplement, soak, misting, reminder). At the top there are filters for period (last 7, 30 or 90 days, all time, or a date range you pick), type (multi-select) and enclosure.

Tapping a row lets you correct it (date, dose, note) or delete it, as in the log. All local and free.

Due-date notifications are local (no server) and work on the native apps (Android/iOS). On web and Windows they're not available. On mobile, make sure you granted the app the notifications permission in your system settings and that the activity has a next due date set.

Honor/Huawei (MagicOS) — and typically Xiaomi, Oppo and similar — use aggressive battery management that can block or delay reminders even with the permission granted. In Settings → Battery → App launch find Squamy, turn off automatic management and allow Auto-launch, Secondary launch and Run in background. Also allow Alarms & reminders (exact alarms) in Settings → Apps → Squamy.

To verify right away, open Menu → Diagnostics and use the test notification: it arrives after about 10 seconds, even with the app in the background.

Open the enclosure and go to Animals. Here the subject is the individual, not a quantity: every animal has a name, sex, date of birth, morph, origin and its own history of feedings, weights and sheds. You can start from the species catalogue, which carries the reference cards (temperatures, humidity, UVB zone, feeding, habitat).

Species not in the catalogue? From the search, when there are no results, tap Add manually: you create a free-form entry with whatever name you like, with no card attached. Check first that it isn't already there under another trade or scientific name.

Animals marked as no longer with us stay on the enclosure page, counted separately: their history is not deleted.

Open the animal from the enclosure's Animals section and scroll to Growth. Tap “Add measurement”, enter the weight in grams (or the length), the date and optionally a note. Squamy shows a mini chart of the trend and a few statistics (last measurement, change, average).

Weight is the most honest data you have: a reptile hides illness for weeks, the scale does not. Once a month for an adult, every one or two weeks for a juvenile. It's free, works offline and is included in the data backup.

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.

From the menu open Products (stock of food, fertilizers, medications, equipment, shared across enclosures) and Expenses to track costs. You can link an Amazon item to a product: from there you reopen and rebuy it in one tap with “Restock”.

Use Notes & journal to record observations, important changes or ideas. It's your logbook: optional title and free text, all saved on the device.

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.

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.

The ready answers are the lightning-bolt suggestions in the Assistant tab when the chat is empty (and in the full list under “More ready questions”). They are the most common reptile keeping questions — how often to feed, what to do about a refused meal, what temperatures are needed, how often to change the UVB tube — with the answer already written by us: it appears instantly, works offline and does not use up your daily limit, because no AI is queried. For the same reason they are not marked “AI generated”: no model wrote them.

If you type your own question the answer is generated by the AI and appears as it is written, instead of making you wait in front of a still screen: you start reading after about a second. On the web version the text arrives all at once at the end, but the timing is the same.

Open the Tools menu from the home screen and choose Breeding. The Cultures tab lists the types Squamy knows — crickets, dubia roaches, mealworms, superworms, waxworms, black soldier fly larvae, fruit flies, isopods, springtails — each with its own card: what you need, how to start it, how long it takes and the mistakes that kill it. The cards are readable on any plan, offline too.

To keep the log tap “New culture”, pick the type, name your container and — if you like — say which enclosures it feeds. From there you start a batch: the app knows when it will be ready and marks it “ready today”. When you use it you tap Harvest; if the culture failed, you mark it as failed — that is how you learn how many batches actually work.

Why batches and not just the culture: a dubia colony has to be started months before you need it, and cricket keepers start a new one every week, staggered. The everyday question is not “how is the culture doing” but “which batch do I harvest today”.

Yes, in the Clutches tab of Breeding. Unlike cultures, a clutch lives inside a real enclosure: you pick it from the enclosure where it is happening.

You record the laying with species, date and optionally the parents (chosen among that enclosure's animals), then move through the stages as you see them: hatching, first meals, closing the clutch. You can update the survivor count whenever you like — the number is always shown with the date of the last count, because “41” without knowing when says nothing. If you keep a live food culture you can link it to the clutch: it is what you are weaning the hatchlings on.

⚠️ Incubation is not a reminder like the others: in species with temperature-dependent sex determination, the incubator's degrees decide the sex of the hatchlings. Log them.

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: on the Free plan it's manual (“Sync now”), on Premium it becomes automatic in the background. Your local data remains the source of truth.

No. Right after signing in this device is still empty: your account data has to come down from the server first. Until that first sync succeeds, Squamy doesn't say “no enclosures” but “Data not downloaded yet”, with a Sync now button right below.

On the Free plan syncing is manual: that button (or “Sync now” in the Account section) is what downloads your enclosures. On Premium it starts on its own right after sign-in. If you're offline nothing comes down: try again once you're back online. Your data stays safe on the server in the meantime.

On launch Squamy asks whether you want to sign in, create an account or continue without an account. To leave, open Account and tap Sign out: that account's data is removed from this device and you're back at the start page. That's the point: if you then sign in with a different account, you don't find the previous one's data mixed in.

Nothing is lost: the data stays on the server and comes back on your next sign-in with the same account. If there are changes not synced yet we tell you first, and you can pick “Sync and sign out”.

No, that's expected. If you pick “Hide My Email” during Sign in with Apple, Apple creates a forwarding address for you, like ftn2tk9wzw@privaterelay.appleid.com: that's all we see, while messages still land in your real inbox. It exists so you don't have to hand your personal address to every app.

Two things worth knowing: that account has no password (you always sign in with the Apple button, so “Forgot password” doesn't apply), and if you sign in sometimes with Apple and sometimes with Google those are two different accounts for us, each with its own enclosures. You can stop the forwarding any time from Settings → your name → Sign in with Apple on your iPhone.

Yes. Open the enclosure, tap the menu and pick “Share this enclosure”. Choose what the other person may do — can view or can log — and the app generates an 8-character code. You pass it on yourself, however you like: the app emails nobody. Whoever receives it opens Squamy, goes to Sharing → “I have a code” and types it in; if the code arrives as a link, tapping it is enough.

⚠️ The code is shown only once: only its fingerprint is kept on the server, so if you lose it you generate another (one tap). It works for one person, it expires (72 hours by default) and you can cancel it before it is used.

Someone who can log records meals from the shared enclosure: they open the animal and pick how it went. What they cannot touch is the structure — the enclosure, the animals' details, recurring reminders: sharing care is not handing over ownership. And it stays on record who logged what; each person can only correct their own entries.

You can revoke at any time, and whoever received the share can leave on their own too. What they logged stays. It is free for everyone.

⚠️ A shared enclosure is readable online only: it does not become part of your own data and is not visible without a connection.

Yes, with Premium. From the menu → API & integrations you switch ingestion on and generate a key; your setup uses it to send readings with an ordinary HTTP request. The screen gives you examples already filled in with your enclosure — one for curl, one for Home Assistant — and a “Try the call” button that sends the real request without storing anything.

⚠️ This is not a ready-made SmartLife or Tuya integration, and it is better to know upfront: Squamy opens the door and gives you the key, but the piece that connects the sensor is written by you — or by someone for you. If you already run Home Assistant, ESPHome or a Raspberry Pi, it takes five lines of config. If you have none of those, this feature is not for you.

Why it works this way. For us to read your sensors we would have to keep your SmartLife account credentials — the most sensitive data in the whole product — and pay a commercial contract to those cloud providers. If you send them to us instead, neither is needed, and it works with anything that can make an HTTP request, not only the brands we would have managed to integrate.

The limits: temperatures and humidity one reading per hour, everything else one per day, and at most 500 requests per day per key. A value every five minutes adds no information: it adds rows and unreadable charts.

The key is shown only once (the server keeps only its fingerprint) and can be revoked any time; switching ingestion off stops every key at once, immediately. Each reading keeps its source, so in the history you can tell the sensor's from your own.

Full export (CSV + JSON backup) and import/restore without duplicates are part of the Premium plan. They let you take your data with you or restore it on a new device.

Everything that runs on the device is free forever. Premium adds the features that cost us to run: automatic background multi-device sync, full export/import, the automatic reminders of the guided cycle setup and the AI features (Assistant, Enclosure doctor and the reading interpretation the parser can't handle); on Android it also removes the ad banners. Advanced trend analysis and the photo album are still coming. You can still download and use the whole Free plan with no account.

It isn't on sale yet: Squamy has no store listing anywhere. The planned prices are €3.99/month or €29.99/year, and once sales open it will be bought from the Android app through Google Play. How it will work — renewal, cancelling, restoring purchases — is explained in “How do I subscribe to Premium?”.

If Premium was gifted to you (testers, friends, support), you'll see it in the Account card: there's nothing to pay and nothing to renew, and if the gift has an end date it's written there.

⚠️ Premium is not on sale yet, because Squamy has no store listing anywhere. What follows describes how it will work once sales open — where to buy it, how it renews, how to cancel — and the prices shown are the planned ones.

Where to buy. From the Android app, through Google Play: open Account → Premium (or tap “Get Premium” on a Premium feature) and pick a plan — €3.99/month or €29.99/year. On iPhone, web and Windows you can't buy it, but Premium bought on Android works everywhere: just sign in with the same account.

A Squamy account is required: you can't subscribe while signed out. If you open the plans without signing in you still see the prices (knowing the cost is fair enough), but both plans stay locked and there's a Sign in button that takes you to sign-in and brings you back — the plans unlock by themselves. The same applies to Restore purchases. There's a reason: the subscription is tied to your account, not to the phone, and that's what lets it follow you across devices and survive a new phone. A payment made with no account would have nobody to attribute it to, and it would take support to untangle.

Renewal. It renews automatically at the end of each period (monthly or yearly) until you cancel; Google Play handles the payment, we never see your card details. The Account card always shows status and date: “renews on …” or “active until …, then it ends”.

Cancelling. From Account → Manage subscription (it opens your Google Play subscriptions), or straight from Play Store → profile menu → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions. Cancelling does not remove Premium immediately: it stays active until the end of the period you already paid for. You don't need to uninstall the app — and uninstalling does not cancel anything.

When it actually ends. At the end of the period you paid for. We keep a small margin — up to two days — so that a delay on our side never costs you Premium you paid for: a store notification arriving late, a phone left offline. It's a technical margin, not an extension of the subscription. After a renewal or a cancellation the app can take up to an hour to notice the change; if you're in a hurry, sign out and back in.

Billing problems. If your card expires or a payment fails, Google retries for a while (grace period): during those days you stay Premium and the app says so plainly, so you can update your payment method without losing anything.

Restoring purchases. New phone, reinstalled app, or Premium not showing? Sign in with the same account and tap Account → Restore purchases. If you bought with a different Google Play account, the restore won't find it: get in touch.

Refunds. They are handled by Google Play (Play Store → Order history → Report a problem). Once a refund is granted, Premium switches off.

Gifted Premium (testers, friends, support): there is nothing to pay and nothing to cancel, and if it has an end date it is shown in the Account card.

Launch code (3 months free). If you received a promo code: open the Play Store → profile menu → Payments and subscriptions → Redeem code, paste it and confirm. Premium switches on right away in the app (if you don't see it, sign out and back in). ⚠️ When the 3 months end the subscription continues as a paid one at the price of the plan shown during redemption: if you don't want to carry on, cancel before it expires — you'll stay Premium until the last free day, with nothing charged. The date is in Account.

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.

Your level filters how much you see: Basic shows the essential parameters for beginners, Expert adds the advanced ones. Change it whenever you like: no data is lost, only what's displayed changes.

Where to change it: open Menu at the top (the grid icon) — the level is the first thing in the sheet — or go to Account. Whichever one is active is always written under the app name, top left.

Squamy is available in Italian and English. On first launch it follows the device language; you can change it from the account settings. Both the interface and the parameter names and guide change accordingly.

Under Account → App info → “What's new”: you'll find the release notes for the latest Squamy updates, newest first, so you know what changed or improved in each version.

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.

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 squamy.app@gmail.com: 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).