Boss won’t stop texting on WhatsApp, so this developer built a smart way to read messages quietly

Courtesy: Reddit

A Reddit post by an Indian developer has struck a nerve with working professionals who feel overwhelmed by constant WhatsApp messages from their bosses. In a post shared on r/developersIndia, a user going by the name Several-Virus4840 described how he built a small but clever tool to deal with long, mentally draining WhatsApp messages, without triggering those dreaded blue ticks.

The problem, as he explains, is familiar to many. His boss sends frequent, lengthy WhatsApp messages. Opening them every time feels exhausting, and sometimes he simply doesn’t want the sender to know that he has read the message. Instead of muting notifications or ignoring chats altogether, he decided to build a technical workaround.

The result is a side project called “whatsNot”, which quietly reads messages for him, summarizes them, and shows the key points on a tiny screen. The best part is that it does all this without opening WhatsApp on his phone, so no read receipts are triggered.

At the core of the setup is a Node.js service. This service listens to incoming WhatsApp messages using an open-source library called Baileys, which allows developers to interact with WhatsApp Web programmatically. When a new message arrives, it is captured through a simple HTTP server.

The text is then sent to a free Grok large language model API. The AI does two things. First, it summarizes the message into something short and readable. Second, it analyses the tone of the message and flags whether it sounds urgent, neutral, aggressive, or something else. This helps the user quickly decide whether the message needs immediate attention or can wait.

Once the summary is ready, a small piece of hardware takes over. A NodeMCU microcontroller regularly polls the server for new summaries and displays them on a tiny OLED screen. There is also a touch sensor attached, which allows the user to refresh the screen or scroll through longer summaries.

The hardware setup is deliberately simple and scrappy. It uses a NodeMCU, a small OLED display, and a touch sensor, all soldered directly together. The entire device is powered by a small battery salvaged from an old selfie stick, making it portable and independent of the phone.

Crucially, this setup never opens the WhatsApp chat or sends a “seen” event back to WhatsApp’s servers. Since read receipts are triggered at the app’s user interface level, the sender never sees blue ticks.

The developer is clear that this is not a commercial product. It is just a practical and slightly humorous way to cope with modern workplace communication. Still, the post has resonated with many, highlighting how developers are increasingly using small AI-powered tools to solve very human problems at work.