Item90: home supplies, room by room

The question nobody asks until it matters

How much water does your family need for a week? It sounds like a silly question, and almost nobody has ever done the sum. The reference I found is Ready.gov, the US civil-protection site: at least one gallon of water per person per day, for drinking and hygiene.^[1] A gallon is about 3.8 litres. For four people over seven days that is more than a hundred litres, a mountain of bottles you have to put somewhere.

Buying is the easy part

The hard part comes after. Knowing where you put things, how many you have, when they expire. Among people who handle stockpiles the rule is the old one, first in, first out: use what came in first, with the oldest items in front and the new ones behind, as the University of Florida extension service also points out.^[2] It works, but only if you remember everything. And then there is the water: again according to Ready.gov, water that is not commercially bottled should be replaced every six months, while bottled water should be kept in its sealed container, somewhere cool and dark. Six months, with a couple of jerrycans and a few crates in the cellar, is a reminder no head can hold.

What Item90 is

Item90 is an Android app by Survival-apps for keeping an inventory of your home supplies. I dressed it in '90s pixel art, with neon and 8-bit sounds, because a list of jars shouldn't also look like a spreadsheet. The icon, an amber cube with 90 on it, is the last thing we changed. Inside there is nothing showy: a map of the house, a catalogue, a few calculations.

How it works

You start from the house. Pantry, Cellar, Garage, Kitchen, Bathroom and Bedroom are already there; you add other rooms yourself, and inside each room you put containers: a shelf, a crate, a cabinet. Then you fill them. The catalogue has nearly six hundred items, each with its own icon, and a search that filters as you type, with categories within reach.

• HOME MAP — rooms and containers can be added, edited and deleted; if a container holds supplies, the app warns you before deleting it
• CUSTOM ITEMS — if something is missing, create it yourself and pick one of 80 icons
• NEEDS — set how many people you are and how many days you want to last, and the bars tell you whether water, food and essentials (torch, first aid, radio, blankets) are enough
• EXPIRY RADAR — shows supplies that are expired or expire within 30 days, in date order
• MINIMUM LEVEL AND SHOPPING LIST — set a threshold for an item: when it drops below, it lands on the list by itself
• PRINT — the inventory by room and container, or just the shopping list, on paper
• ENGLISH / ITALIAN — one button at the top to switch language

Where the app is cautious, and where you have to be

I'll tell you one thing straight away, because I checked it. In the needs calculation Item90 uses an estimate of 3 litres of water per person per day and 2,100 kcal. The Ready.gov figure I quoted above is higher: about 3.8 litres, because it includes hygiene. It isn't an error, it's an indicative estimate, and the app says so. But if you have children, animals, or it's hot in summer, it pays to stay on the generous side and buy a few litres more than the bar says.

The other thing is data. You type quantities and expiry dates yourself and the app doesn't verify them, so the real label on the product always beats the app. And what you enter stays on the phone, unencrypted: no passwords, no real codes. There is a notice the first time you open it, and from the Notice button, that says exactly this.

Yours, not rented

I wrote about it in the transmission on ownership versus subscription: a preparedness app that stops working when you stop paying is a contradiction. Item90 is bought once on Payhip, with no subscription, and after activation it works offline. The internet is only used to verify the license: at activation and, now and then, afterwards when there is a connection. The key and the technical request data are sent, never your supplies. The APK arrives after purchase; how to check it is the right one before installing is explained in transmission 021. This version's file was uploaded to VirusTotal: 0 detections out of 67 engines, on 21 October 2026.

Where it fits with the rest

Supplies are only one piece. For the radio, power bank and torch there is the minimum physical kit; for knowing where to go when the network is gone, offline maps; for what the phone can already do in an emergency, 034. Item90 sits in the middle: it tells you whether the things that go in the kit are really there. If you're looking for a pantry inventory app, this is it, and the page with purchase, hash and verification is the product page.

Frequently asked questions

Which devices does it run on?

It's an Android app: after buying on Payhip you download the APK and install it on your phone, as explained on the product page.

Can I add items that aren't in the catalogue?

Yes. You create the item, give it a name, a unit and one of 80 icons, and put it in a container like the others.

How does it work out what I need?

From the number of people and the days of autonomy you set. For water and food it uses an indicative estimate of 3 litres and 2,100 kcal per person per day; for the essentials it checks that there is at least one.

Does it warn me when something is about to expire?

The expiry radar lists supplies that are already expired or expire within 30 days. It is a list you find when you open the app: it doesn't send notifications on its own.

Is it available in English?

Yes, the interface switches between English and Italian with one button.