HouseMouse vs a WhatsApp group with your partner
A WhatsApp group with your partner is great for talking and bad at keeping track. The grocery list, who paid the internet and when the filter was changed all scroll out of sight. HouseMouse is a helper you each text in your own chat. It keeps all of that for both of you, reminds whoever’s turn it is, and asks before it changes anything.
Get started, it’s free
Takes about 5 minutes · Nothing to download · Free during the invite-only beta
What a group chat does well
- Talking to each other. HouseMouse doesn’t replace that.
- It’s already on both your phones, and it’s free.
Where it falls short for running a home
- Lists and plans scroll away, and nobody can find who said they’d pay the internet bill.
- Nothing reminds anyone, so whoever remembers ends up remembering for both.
- There’s no running balance, no plan for the year, and nowhere to keep the home’s history.
What HouseMouse adds
- One grocery list, the dinner plan, chores with owners or turns, bills, shared costs and your home’s history, kept for you both.
- Reminders in each person’s own WhatsApp chat, sent to whoever’s up.
- A web page with everything in one place, which you can both correct.
- Nothing changes until one of you says yes.
Where it stops
- HouseMouse doesn’t replace talking to each other. Keep your group for that.
- For now, you each text HouseMouse in your own chat. A group with HouseMouse in it is coming later.
Questions
- Can I add HouseMouse to our existing group?
- Not yet. You each text HouseMouse in your own chat, and you both see the same things. A shared group is planned.
- Will it read our group chat?
- No. It only sees what you send to it.