A student-led pilot, run in the open.
Laptops spend many hours idle. We want to measure how much of that is really usable before building anything else.
Justin
Founder · SMU student
Justin is the founder of Nightshift, an early-stage pilot measuring the usable idle computing capacity of everyday laptops. Based in Singapore, he is studying at SMU. His focus in this first phase is transparency: collecting only device state, publishing what is and isn't collected, and learning from a small group of volunteers.
Why we are doing this
Laptops spend many hours idle. We want to measure how much of that is really usable before building anything else, and be open with every participant about what we collect.
Phase one is about transparency: collect only device state, publish what is and isn't collected, and learn from a small group of volunteers.
Will it slow my laptop?
The app is designed to use under 1% of your CPU, and runs no jobs during the pilot.
Can I earn money?
The pilot pays a flat amount for 30 days. Earnings from real jobs come in a later phase, and figures before then are estimates.
Which laptops can join?
Personal Windows or Mac laptops with admin rights and at least 8 GB memory. Managed, shared, virtual and tablet devices are not eligible.
Who can see my data?
Only the project team, under a consent form you can review. You can export or delete your data any time.
Will it use more electricity?
A little, while the laptop stays awake. The dashboard estimates the cost.
What about battery wear and heat?
The app is being designed to work only while plugged in, and to pause when the laptop is busy or hot. The pilot runs no compute jobs, so it adds almost no load.
How do payouts work?
The pilot payment is sent after 30 days by PayNow or bank transfer. Later, job earnings would sit in a wallet and be paid out through a licensed payment provider, with a minimum withdrawal.
How do I stop?
Pause or uninstall the app any time, and ask us to delete your data. Nothing is left running.
Who are the buyers?
Teams with batch work that has no sensitive data, such as rendering, data processing and research simulations. We are still finding our first design partners.
Privacy notice and consent
How we handle pilot data, in plain words.
What we collect and why
Whether your laptop is on, plugged in and idle; CPU and memory load; hardware specs; and simple safety checks (firewall, antivirus and disk encryption on or off, and days since the last system update). We use it only to measure idle capacity during the pilot.
What we never collect
Your files, browsing history, keystrokes, screen contents or location.
How long we keep it and where
Kept for the pilot and 12 months after, then deleted or anonymised. Stored in Singapore by Supabase.
Website analytics
This website counts page visits and button clicks with PostHog to see which pages help people decide. It sets no cookies, keeps its identifier only until you close the tab, and does not record your keystrokes or what you type into forms.
Your rights
You can withdraw consent, request access to your data, ask for corrections or deletion, and uninstall at any time by contacting us.
Who can take part
People aged 18 or over, on a personal laptop they own, with admin rights.
Help us measure what idle laptops can really do.
Join the pilot with your laptop, or email us with questions.