Breathe Easy

Inspiration

Panic attacks are one of the most misunderstood experiences in medicine. The suffocation drive - the actual signal that triggers the urge to breathe - is governed entirely by CO₂, not oxygen.

Every existing treatment addresses the response. No tool has ever addressed the sensor itself - because no one has ever made that sensor visible. That's what inspired Breathe Easy.

What it does

Breathe Easy is the first tool to make the CO₂ drive visible and teachable — not as a number on a dashboard, but as a continuous ambient awareness that develops over time.

It works across three surfaces:

The Band - a wearable that reads respiratory rate, HRV, skin temperature, and transcutaneous CO₂ proxy continuously. It communicates through haptic language - four distinct pulse patterns that signal CO₂ state before the app is ever opened. The band speaks before the alarm fires.

The App - three modes working together. Clarity Mode shows the CO₂ signal in real time - a living visualization that becomes a new sense over time. Recalibrate Mode delivers a personalized breathwork protocol calculated from the user's own data, with real-time CO₂ feedback showing the signal normalizing as they breathe. History Mode builds a weekly chemosensory terrain map - when pressure peaks, what triggers it, and whether recalibration is working.

The Halo - a bedside ambient device that monitors room CO₂ and breathing patterns during sleep. It detects hypopnea-adjacent events below the clinical apnea threshold - the events that cause exhaustion without ever triggering a diagnosis. It responds silently: adjusting ventilation, emitting a 40Hz acoustic pulse, warming the room slightly. In the morning it surfaces one screen - a sleep breath score, events resolved, and a one-tap doctor export.

How we built it

We built Breathe Easy entirely in Figma over three days. We started by establishing a design system - a dark navy color palette anchored by a single teal signal color used sparingly and intentionally,

The prototype was built with Smart Animate throughout - the breathing ring in the Active Session screen loops continuously between inhale and exhale states. Looping animations were built first in Figma Design, before being sent to Figma Make to create smooth, pleasing displays.

Breathe Easy is a speculative design today. The science it's built on is not speculative at all.

Built With

• figma