Moments

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Inspiration

People with the most interesting lives don’t have time to edit videos. I noticed that “day-in-the-life” content is everywhere, but creating it usually requires manual trimming, captioning, and timeline editing. I wanted to build something that lets people capture moments naturally throughout their day without worrying about editing later. Moments was inspired by the idea that memories should be effortless to create, not another task to manage.

What it does

Moments is a mobile app that automatically turns short video clips recorded throughout the day into a single, polished “day-in-the-life” video. Users can quickly record clips, optionally trim them, add simple captions or timestamps, and let the app automatically stitch everything together into one cohesive video—no manual editing required.

How I built it

Moments was built using React Native with Expo, allowing me to ship quickly on both iOS and Android. I used react-native-vision-camera for high-performance video recording, Realm for local data persistence, and FFmpegKit for trimming, caption rendering, and video concatenation. Videos are stored locally using Expo’s file system, and time-based captions are burned directly into the final export for consistency across platforms.

Don't forget about good ol trusty AI, especially for debugging.

Challenges I ran into

Video processing on mobile is complex. Managing performance, syncing audio and video, handling trimming edge cases, and ensuring consistent output formats required careful FFmpeg configuration. Integrating native libraries like VisionCamera and FFmpegKit within Expo also required custom configuration and debugging, especially across platforms.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

I'm proud that Moments goes beyond a simple prototype—it’s a fully working app that records, trims, captions, and exports real videos on-device. Building a clean, automated flow that removes the need for traditional video editing while still giving users control was a major accomplishment for us.

I believe soon should be ready for production.

What I learned

I learned how to design around automation-first experiences, where the product does most of the work for the user. (Work flows for the app becomes more of a focus) Technically, I gained deeper experience with mobile video pipelines, native module integration, and balancing performance with user experience on constrained devices.

What’s next for Moments

Next, I want to expand Moments with customizable caption styles, background music, and shared moments for couples or groups. Long-term, I see Moments evolving into a lightweight memory-keeping platform that helps people document their lives effortlessly—daily, weekly, or even yearly recaps and which could be shared within the app to see how other people live their lives from anywhere.