Obsession

Home Screen
Live Date
Persona Verification

Inspiration People rehearse dates in their heads but never practice under real pressure. We built Obsession so you can stop imagining the conversation and train for the one that actually matters.

What it does Obsession is an AI dating-conversation simulator/coach (not a chatbot girlfriend). You verify, start a voice practice date, and while you talk the camera streams heart rate. When your pulse jumps, the AI adapts mid-conversation and the UI shows your heart rate, facial expressions, and demeanor. Afterward you get scores, a timeline, a coach’s note, and a pattern remembered for next time.

How we built it Expo mobile app + Express brain. ElevenLabs handles voice; our Custom LLM webhook → Gemini writes adaptive date lines and coaching. Presage streams HR; Tiger Data stores telemetry and turns; Backboard recalls cross-session patterns; Persona gates 18+ verification. On each AI turn, the server reads HR vs baseline and injects a signal into Gemini when it spikes.

Challenges we ran into Native modules forced a real device build (no Expo Go). After date 1, LiveKit/WebRTC sometimes left the mic silent on date 2 while audio still played and we had to diagnose that on-device and fully reset the audio engine between sessions. We also had to keep voice + camera vitals from fighting the same audio session, and keep coaching signal-based without overclaiming emotions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of Full loop in one demo: verify → voice date → live vitals → adaptive reply → scores + coach + memory. A brand-first experience, real NERVES ↑ adaptation from HR delta, and every sponsor API wired into one product story.

What we learned Physiology is powerful context for conversation AI if you treat it as a signal, not a diagnosis. Mobile voice is audio-session engineering as much as prompting. One unforgettable demo beat beats ten half-finished features.

What's next for Obsession Richer Presage signals, more scenarios, stronger cross-session memory, clearer biometric privacy UX, and a path from HackRice demo to a real practice product.