HideNow

Even when there’s work to be done, a short break can be beneficial in the long run. However, you don’t exactly want to be caught by your boss when you should be working on an important project, or your parents when you’re supposed to be studying.

HideNow is a nifty little program that can help you out, as it is capable of performing various actions, such as minimizing or shutting down a window, whenever it detects motion from a connected webcam.

While it was primarily designed to enable you to quickly hide certain windows when someone gets close to your PC, this application offers a few other functions that make it a pretty versatile tool.

Aside from closing or minimizing a certain window or application, HideNow can also bring another to the foreground, open a new application or even rename a selected window.

It is worth noting that you cannot calibrate the motion detector in any way. We found it to be a bit too sensitive during our tests, but the camera model and lighting conditions are, of course, important factors.

You should be careful with the “Open Application” function, as HideNow may launch numerous instances of the same process at once if the selected program supports it.

At present, there is no way to save your settings or create profiles for various scenarios. Also, all the actions you have set up will be lost when you shut down the application.

HideNow is a fairly straightforward utility that can certainly come in handy, but it may not be all that reliable. The fact that the motion detector cannot be calibrated limits its uses, and it lacks a few important features.