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RRRz — the dream machine

Ric Rios · Founder

01 Why

I struggle to find a less busy mind.

I want more focus, and the focus changes. Sometimes it is performance, sometimes it is sleep. Rolling, working, recovering: in all of them, what I am after is flow.

I wanted a real sleep machine, one that could help someone reach a state of less mind.

Today's resting face at 2 pm: gray zigzag threads on a deep blue ground, a few blue streaks, the dial low on the glass with its orange hand, and the key TURN · 10 MIN.
The same face at 2:30 am: the ground black, the threads dim, the dial ringed in amber, and the key SLEEP · 4 HR 00.
The same machine at 2 pm and at 2:30 am, 24 October.
02

What it drew from

A lot of things inspired this. It came together once we went through the reference material and knew exactly what we were drawing from, why it mattered, and what the machine should reflect back.

  • Dieter Rams 3 Sep

    I like the most simple looking machines. When I wanted longer sessions, I asked for a knob, and for Rams knobs, sliders and switches.

    LENGTH became a second dial, from a minute to eight hours, with four printed stops: MIN, SIT, HR and NIGHT. It still turns that way.

  • Vangelis, Blade Runner 14 Oct

    In the sound, I wanted less ringtone and alarm and more soundtrack. The airy parts were the best. Let it breathe. The take I liked had the pocket and the feel of Vangelis and the Blade Runner soundtrack, and I asked for it deeper still.

    So nothing in the machine loops like a ringtone. A thread's tune plays once when you arrive and fades back. After that the machine plays in one voice, its own.

  • Jiu-jitsu 10 Sep

    I asked whether the way in before training should engage, and whether the way down after it should calm. They do.

    CLIMB rises three times and arrives. RECOVER walks the breath down from eighteen a minute to six.

  • It should just work.

    Intuitive, and fun to explore. I hate the idea of having to explain it.

  • Craft and refinement.

    For every good thing we add, we remove something that is not as good.

  • Nothing about you.

    No account. The privacy label reads Data Not Collected.

03

Why it exists

I named it the dream machine because it should help with any kind of dream. Deep focus before training. Flow at work. Winding up on the commute in, winding down on the way home. And all of the night. Blue in the day, amber at night.

It answers two needs on the way to less mind: to relax, and to zone out on something to look at.

Sleep has no place at the wheel. But stuck in traffic and anxious, it should still help set that state, so in the car it plays the day only.

The promise

A sound bath to play.

04

Seven versions

Seven versions in thirty-six days, 18 September to 24 October. Each took something off the glass and made what was left more intelligent and more immersive.

This is the panel, opened, at 2 pm New York on the day each version cleared review, photographed from the code that was live that day.

  1. Version 1.0's panel at 2 pm, 18 September: the RRJJBB mark, three dials (DREAM STEADY, LENGTH 1 HR 00, VOICE AUTO), START, six rows from PICK to PLACE, three keys (SCREEN ON, LISTEN, BREATHE) and PANEL.
    1.0 · 18 Sep Where it starts, as RRJJBB: three dials, START, six rows and three keys.
  2. Version 1.0.1's panel at 2 pm, 22 September: the RRRz mark, three dials with VOICE now MACHINE'S, START, seven rows with SCREEN among them, two keys (LISTEN, BREATHE) and PANEL.
    1.0.1 · 22 Sep The name becomes RRRz, and SCREEN ON turns from a key into a row. The light now goes down gold and comes up rose.
  3. Version 1.0.2's panel at 2 pm, 30 September: the day drawn as a curve on a plate above, three dials, START, one row (LIGHT, BLUE) and PANEL.
    1.0.2 · By 30 Sep Six rows and two keys go, BREATHE with them: the breath now runs in every block. The day is drawn on the glass.
  4. Version 1.0.3's panel at 2 pm, 6 October: as in 1.0.2, the day's curve above, three dials, START, the LIGHT row and PANEL.
    1.0.3 · 6 Oct The panel holds. The glass becomes the instrument: touch a thread, strum across them. The app stops asking for the microphone.
  5. Version 1.0.4's panel at 2 pm, 15 October: no plate, gray threads over a deep blue ground filling the glass, two dials (DREAM TURN, LENGTH 10 MIN) with an empty place between them, START, the LIGHT row and PANEL.
    1.0.4 · 15 Oct The plate and the VOICE knob go: the machine picks the voice. The threads take the whole glass, and every one is a string.
  6. Version 1.0.5's panel at 2 pm, 19 October: the threads on blue, three dials (DREAM TURN, LENGTH 10 MIN, THREAD MACHINE with an orange hand), START, the LIGHT row and PANEL.
    1.0.5 · 19 Oct THREAD arrives as the third dial: nine threads, each in its own instrument. The LOOP key goes; the machine keeps the phrase and answers it.
  7. Version 1.0.6's panel at 2 pm, 24 October: as in 1.0.5, the threads on blue, DREAM, LENGTH and THREAD, START, the LIGHT row and PANEL.
    1.0.6 · 24 Oct The panel holds again. DRAW arrives: what a finger draws becomes the threads. Every visit plays in fourths.
05

Craft

  • One strip cut from twenty-four photographs of the resting glass, one on each hour from midnight at the left: amber, then black from 2 to 4 am, a dark brown before dawn, deep rose at 6 and 7, blue through the day, olive gold at 7 and 8 pm, and amber again to midnight.
    Twenty-four photographs of the glass, one on each hour of 24 October.

    The ground follows the sun.

    Blue in the day and amber at night, as I first asked for it. It goes down gold at sundown, comes up rose at sunup, and turns black on the deepest hours.

  • The dial up close at 2 pm: a black disc with an orange hand, ringed by dotted ticks and a faint blue halo, over the threads, and under it the key TURN · 10 MIN.
    The dial, 2 pm.

    No word on the dial.

    One knob on the glass, with nothing written on it. The sheet holds the rest: DREAM, LENGTH, THREAD and START.

  • PLAY on 10 October, with its sound.

    Every sound is made as it plays.

    There are no audio files in the app, so nothing repeats. Forty-eight strings; the lowest sits at 41 Hz.

  • The card of night 0344: SLEEP, LENGTH 1 HR 40, FLOOR 06 / MIN · 23:41, the night's line falling in amber to a floor and running flat, over the address rrjjbb.com/#0344.
    The card of night 0344.

    The night comes back as a card.

    In the morning the night returns as a card: what the night did, never who you are. Its number plays that night again.

06

Impact

175 of 175
countries where it is on the App Store
7 in 36 days
versions, 1.0 to 1.0.6, each released on approval
6
languages on its App Store page
Data Not Collected
its privacy label
Accepted
by Apple: the Halloween 2026 In-App Event

It runs on iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo, on Apple Watch, in CarPlay by day, on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, as a widget and an App Clip, through Siri and Shortcuts, and free in any browser.

Where it stands

1.0.6, which brought DRAW, cleared review on 24 October 2026. The same machine plays free at rrjjbb.com.

Colophon

I designed RRRz, directed it, and ruled every change. Each ruling is written down with its date, and the record is added to, never edited.

It was built with AI: Claude, Anthropic's model, working in Claude Code as lanes with written charters. One drives, others build, and one audits and builds nothing. Of the 1,340 commits behind 1.0.6, 1,280 are signed by Claude. More than two hundred automated gates hold the machine to its own rules, and all of them run every night.

The words are mine. Claude tidied them from how I said them and added nothing.

The pictures are the machine. Each was taken from the code that was live on the day named, at the hour named, New York time.

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