Nine Lives

A virtual pet app that helps you build healthy habits through care, accountability, and a bit of fun.

Inspiration

We’ve all downloaded fitness trackers or health apps that we used for a week and never opened again. Most of them are built around data and metrics — but not feeling.

Nine Lives is our take on habit tracking that feels more human. You take care of a virtual pet — your “buddy” — and the only way to help it thrive is to take care of yourself. We wanted to build something that’s simple, personal, and engaging without being overwhelming.

What it does

Nine Lives is a mobile wellness companion that helps users build better daily habits by tying them to the care of a virtual pet. As you eat better, drink water, sleep regularly, and move, your buddy reflects your progress in real time.

Core features:

Virtual Pet System: Create, customize, and care for your own buddy
Smart Meal Tracking: Take a photo of your food and log it with the help of Clarifai AI
Water Intake Counter: Log cups of water per day to keep yourself (and your pet) hydrated
Sleep Logger: Track how long you’ve been sleeping each night
Step Counter: Pull step data via device sensors to encourage movement
Gamified Feedback: Your buddy reacts to your habits — it gets tired, happy, sad, or energetic
Cloud Sync: All data is synced using Supabase so your buddy is up-to-date across devices

How we built it

When users launch NineLives, they create a pixelated virtual cat companion by selecting from retro-styled sprites and naming their new friend. The app continuously tracks the cat's health and energy metrics using Supabase for real-time data persistence. Users care for their pet by photographing meals with our camera integration, logging water intake, monitoring sleep patterns, and reaching daily step goals via the device's pedometer. All activities affect the cat's status in a gamified, 8-bit inspired interface that evokes classic pet simulators. The pixel art aesthetic extends throughout the app, creating a nostalgic experience while encouraging real-world healthy habits through engaging game mechanics that reward consistent care and activity.

Challenges we ran into

Clarifai Integration: Getting accurate food classifications from live camera input took a lot of tweaking and testing
Data Syncing: Making sure all buddy stats stayed updated across sessions required careful handling of Supabase and AsyncStorage
Sensor Access: Accessing pedometer data across both iOS and Android platforms with Expo had quirks we had to resolve
UI/UX Time Crunch: With all the moving parts, designing and wiring up a clean UI in the hackathon timeframe was a challenge — especially with animations and dynamic states

Accomplishments we’re proud of

Built a full-stack mobile app with real AI and sensor integrations in under 36 hours
Created a smooth experience from onboarding to habit logging to buddy interaction
Turned self-care into something visual and emotional, not just a checklist
Successfully integrated camera + Clarifai AI + cloud syncing — a lot of moving parts for a short window

What we learned

Clarifai’s API and how to tune it for specific image input contexts
Supabase as a full backend platform — it saved us time, but required learning on the fly
Building something that users might want to open each day is as much about feel as it is about functionality

What’s next for Nine Lives

Deeper AI Analysis using Perplexity for detailed nutritional feedback
Weekly Health Summaries and reports on trends
Achievements & Milestones for consistency
Friend Sharing: Let users send their buddy stats to friends or compete on health goals
Expanded Emotion System for the pet to better mirror user behavior