2026.2 - 2026.4
A good morning with glow
Replacing morning phone scrolling with a calm, AI-powered coach on AR glasses.
👓 AI interaction on Glasses
👀 Hands Free Immersive
📵Break Phone habit
🎵 Gamified Wellness
Product Demo
Role
Solo, end to end: research, voice experience, visual design, build
Platform
Snap Spectacles · Lens Studio
Status
Live on the Spectacles app store
The Problem
Without Glow
With Glow
Calm before the to-do list
Every morning I asked ChatGPT, connected to my calendar and email, “What should I do today?” It organized my day, and it also calmed me down. So I took that conversation off the phone and onto glasses, as a calm AI coach.
Why Glasses?
Hands-Free Mobility & Interaction
Embodied Experience
Defining Success
Before designing anything, I defined success as changes in morning behavior, not engagement.
Phone-free start
Phone pickups in the first hour after waking
Calm, intentional mood
A quick check-in before and after the routine
A routine people keep
Mornings completed
A body that moves
Stretch practices completed
Counter-metric: time in the app
Most apps want more engagement. Here success is a short routine, so if time in the app keeps growing, that’s a warning sign, not a win.
Feature Planning
Every feature answers a pain point from asking friends about their mornings. Anything that didn’t, didn’t make the cut.
Visual Design – Spatial Display
AI Agent — Glow
A glowing, sun-inspired AI that users can talk to. I modified a shader and replaced its gradient with warm sunrise colors.
Primary Functions
Wake Up Your Body First
• Music — Start the day with energizing music
• Positive Quote — Set a positive mindset for the day
• Guided Stretch — Gently wake up and activate your body
Secondary Functions
Get More Information to Start Your Day
• Weather
• Calendar & Schedule
• Daily News
• Personalized Reminders
The layout says what comes first
The Glow sits in the center, the wake-up menu on the left, and calendar and reminders below. How you feel comes first, then what you need to do.
Conversation Design
I designed the happy path in voice first
01
Greet
02
Check in
03
Plan
04
Intention
05
Send-off
Key branch: feelings before tasks
If you sound stressed at the check-in, the Glow detours into a short breathing practice first, then comes back to the plan.
The bridge: a real coach’s personality, encoded
I wrote a morning coach’s script, encoded it into the AI’s system prompt, grounded it with today’s calendar, and tuned it by rehearsing real mornings. One deliberate guardrail: supportive, not a therapist.
Same Coach, Different Mornings
Two mornings, same coach instructions: the conversation changes with the day, the personality doesn’t.
Day 1
Day 2
Quote function
Interaction Features
The principle: the conversation drives, and the UI confirms.
Take the Glow with you
If I walk away to make coffee, I can carry the Glow on my hand, so the coach comes with me.
UI that syncs with voice
When the AI reads your calendar or you add a reminder, the panels update at the same moment.
No menus: the conversation moves you on
The AI knows every function, so the conversation itself takes you to the next feature. No main menu, no buttons.
Technical Challenge
Calendar integration
The Glow reads today’s events through the Google Calendar API, so the plan it suggests fits your real day.
Trade-offs
Calm over complete
Only today’s calendar and reminders. No email, news or notifications, because that flood is the problem.
Voice over visual
Voice keeps hands free but is fleeting, which is why the UI syncs with it.
Coach over therapist
A practical coach, so people don’t lean on an AI emotionally first thing in the morning.
Speed over control
Templates got me to a working prototype on real hardware quickly.
Outcome
My housemate wore it every morning for a week.
“I like this app! I like the guided stretch the most. I’m already a mindful person, but that feature helps me feel better to start my day.”
Routine kept
7 of 7 mornings
Calm mood
Felt better starting the day with good intentions
Phone-free start
Not measured yet; the first thing I’d track
What surprised me
I expected the AI conversation to be the star. For him, it was the body: the thing his phone never gave him. One person over one week is an early signal, not proof, but it shifts my priorities.
Reflection & Next Steps
What I learned
• Designing the conversation first made every screen simpler.
• Personal context is what makes AI feel useful.
• The goal is helpful, not habit-forming.
Next
• Test with more people and measure phone pickups in the first hour and mood check-ins.
• Give the body features more weight.