Auralize

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Heart Effect Demo

Inspiration

Why is it that some events like concerts or games feel so unforgettable while others feel disconnected?

The truth is: live events can feel fragmented at times, with audience engagement an increasingly difficult challenge for small event organisers – like college open mics, or even intramurals. Nearly 37.4% of US adults report moderate to severe loneliness – and even in a crowd, people often retreat to their screens.

Looking back to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour or Coldplay’s concerts, when thousands of wristbands light up in sync, the entire stadium becomes a community. While engaging and electric, it’s also expensive, one-time-use and only feasible for large stadiums.

That led us to our inspiration: let us make this magic happen for any crowd, especially small ones with an even smaller budget. Whether at a football game, open mic, bonfire night or even just with friends, our phone’s flashlight can be our “wristbands” without any hardware.

And hence, we present Auralize.

What it does

Auralize turns every smartphone into part of a synchronized light experience providing an immersive user experience that engages audiences with the whole stage around them. Here’s how:

A host creates a room, and a simple 4-digit code is generated.
Friends and fans join instantly using the code, no accounts needed
The host chooses an effect (Twinkle, Ripple, Shine, Heart, or even a custom vibe {in progress} )
Every phone syncs, which turns isolated devices into a synchronized light show with a lot of patterns
The host can shift Effects seamlessly for better user experience
Anyone can leave or close the room when the event ends.

Picture it: people smiling, lifting their phones together in a courtyard, a football game, or a late-night jam session. Auralize conjures spirit at your fingertips – for free, without any expensive hardware.

How we built it

We built Auralize to be lightweight (less than a second to join a room), and fast so anyone can join instantly.

Frontend: Built with React Native + Expo for seamless cross-platform support on both iOS and Android.
Backend: Powered by Firebase for real-time database storage. This gives us anonymous sign-in (no friction for users) and fast syncing between devices.
Flow:
1. Initiation: Users join anonymously; their location is stored with a non-personally identifiable UUID.
2. Community: A host generates a simple 4-digit room code that anyone can join.
3. Pattern Generation: We leverage GPS coordinates (to 12dp precision) to place each phone in a 2D wave simulation, creating ripple and torchlight patterns across devices.
4. Customizability: We built 4 presets so far (✨Twinkle, 🌊Ripple, 💡Shine, ❤️Heart), with support for future custom effects.

Challenges we ran into

Firebase Synchronisation to function without Login – We wanted a seamless experience where all users and their locations are kept anonymous. This was challenging since Firebase normally requires all users to login. As a result, we had to brainstorm and troubleshoot to create non-personally identifying UUIDs for each member that get deleted when the room is destroyed
Optimizing mapping of longitude/latitude coordinates to 2D wave functions – For the torchlight patterns, we needed to create a variety of equations and also needed to determine a cut-off point by adjusting the values through experimentation

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Optimizing latency rates of synchronized flashlight pulses between devices to reduce the time taken between effect transitions or time taken to connect with host
Dedicated UI/UX-oriented design to reflect strong thematic and brand identity through the color palette of orange and white for sleekness yet enthusiasm in addition to an easy-to-navigate and intuitive interface for users.

What we learned

Cross-platform compatibility – We successfully deployed this app on both Android and iOS devices, which required us to navigate different challenges in ensuring a similar user experience. Eg – fonts, screen sizes or the flashlight functionality
Navigating the full product development cycle – In a short time period, we were able to brainstorm multiple ideas, prototype them and then create an app on React Native and Expo with Firebase from scratch in under 36 hours.

What's next for Auralize

Introducing the Custom Button Feature i.e. users can create patterns and then present them through everyone’s flashlights
Ability to send pulses or a volleyball bouncing based on the phone’s accelerometer to add user-driven engagement
Add colored hardware that can turn the white flashlight into multiple colors as a relatively accessible add-on