Onaheya

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Inspiration

Watching a movie has always been more than just watching something on a screen. It’s about the laughter, the reactions, the conversations, and the memories we create with other people.

But today, watching movies together often means juggling different platforms. We stream on one app, message our friends on another, search for recommendations somewhere else, and sometimes struggle to stay perfectly in sync.

We wanted to change that.

That’s how ONAHEYA was born: from a simple question. What if watching a movie online could feel like sitting right next to someone, even when you’re thousands of kilometres apart?

We envisioned a platform where movies bring people together, strangers become communities through shared interests, and stories continue beyond the screen.

What it does

ONAHEYA is a social entertainment platform designed to turn watching movies and TV shows into a shared, interactive experience.

Instead of treating streaming as something people do alone, ONAHEYA brings entertainment, discovery, and social connection into one platform.

At its core, ONAHEYA brings together several experiences:

• Shared Watch Rooms: Create or join virtual rooms where people can watch movies and shows together through synchronized playback.
• Real-Time Interactions: Bring conversations into the viewing experience through live communication and shared reactions.
• Movie and TV Discovery: Explore entertainment titles, find something worth watching, and access information about movies and shows.
• AI-Powered Experiences: Use AI integration to support a more interactive entertainment experience.
• Personalized Social Entertainment: Build toward a platform where people connect through their interests, recommendations, and shared viewing experiences.

What makes ONAHEYA special is the larger experience we’re building around these foundations.

Our vision includes social profiles, following other movie lovers, sharing recommendations, planning movie dates, private messaging with consent, community discussions, and discovering movies based on mood.

We are also exploring a connection between books and their screen adaptations, allowing users to move from a movie or series to its related book where reading rights permit, and discuss both versions within the same community.

We don’t just want users to find something to watch. We want them to find someone to share it with.

How we built it

We developed ONAHEYA using a modern full-stack JavaScript architecture, bringing together frontend development, backend services, real-time communication, cloud infrastructure, and AI capabilities.

For the frontend, we used React.js, JavaScript, Vite, and CSS to build a responsive, movie-focused interface.

Our backend uses Node.js and Express.js to support the platform’s services and application logic.

We incorporated Socket.IO for real-time communication, forming the foundation for shared-room interactions and synchronized viewing experiences.

We integrated the TMDB API for movie and television metadata, while the Groq API supports our AI-related functionality.

For media infrastructure, we worked with Cloudflare R2 for video storage and delivery.

We deployed the frontend using Vercel and the backend using Render, and used GitHub to manage our code and development progress.

Authentication and persistent user data are areas we are continuing to strengthen as we move beyond our initial prototype.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how to make a shared watching experience feel natural rather than complicated.

Synchronizing video playback across different users isn’t simply about playing the same movie. People may have different internet speeds, devices, or connectivity conditions, and these differences can affect the shared experience.

Another challenge was integrating several technologies into one cohesive platform. Movie discovery, AI services, real-time communication, video handling, and backend infrastructure each have their own requirements.

We also had to think carefully about scalability, media licensing, authentication, and how to make social interaction feel enjoyable without interrupting the movie itself.

Perhaps our biggest product challenge was deciding how much to build. ONAHEYA has the potential to become a much larger entertainment ecosystem, but we learned to prioritize its foundations before expanding into more advanced social features.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

Our biggest accomplishment is taking ONAHEYA from an ambitious idea into a working, deployed prototype.

We’re especially proud of:

• Building a full-stack application that combines entertainment discovery, real-time technology, AI integration, and cloud services.
• Establishing the technical foundation for shared viewing instead of building another ordinary movie catalogue.
• Designing an experience that considers both the entertainment itself and the people enjoying it.
• Deploying the frontend and backend so that ONAHEYA can be accessed beyond our local development environment.
• Developing a broader product vision that connects movies, television, books, friendships, and online communities.

Most importantly, we’re proud that ONAHEYA is not simply trying to recreate an existing streaming service.

We’re approaching entertainment as a social experience, where the connections formed around a story can be just as meaningful as the story itself.

What we learned

Building ONAHEYA taught us that creating a great product involves much more than writing code.

We learned how frontend interfaces, backend APIs, real-time systems, AI integrations, and cloud infrastructure need to work together to deliver a seamless experience.

We also gained a deeper appreciation for designing around actual human behaviour.

People don’t just watch movies. They recommend them, debate endings, fall in love with characters, share emotional scenes, and remember who they watched something with.

These behaviours helped us understand that successful entertainment technology should support connection rather than simply deliver content.

We also learned the importance of building incrementally, testing integrations, considering accessibility, and planning for privacy, security, and scalability from the beginning.

What’s next for Onaheya

Our vision for ONAHEYA goes far beyond its first prototype.

We’re working toward a complete social entertainment ecosystem with several exciting additions:

• Movie Dates: Let users invite friends or consenting connections to scheduled virtual movie nights, with reminders, RSVPs, and customizable room atmospheres.
• Social Profiles and Communities: Follow movie lovers, publish recommendations, discover people with similar tastes, and build communities around shared interests.
• Richer Watch Rooms: Expand live chat, private messaging controls, emoji reactions, and optional voice or video conversations.
• Mood-Based Discovery: Help users find movies that match how they feel, not just what genre they usually watch.
• Books Meet Screens: Connect movies and television adaptations to their original books, with in-app reading where permitted and dedicated discussions for both versions.
• Scene Keepsakes: Allow users to save meaningful scenes, memorable moments, and personal reflections while respecting spoilers and content rights.
• Premiere Nights and After-Credits Conversations: Create scheduled community viewing events and spaces where conversations can continue after a movie ends.
• Safety, Accessibility, and Scale: Strengthen authentication, privacy controls, moderation, streaming reliability, and accessibility for a wider audience.

Ultimately, we want ONAHEYA to become a place where people don’t just watch stories. They experience them together, talk about them, and create stories of their own.

ONAHEYA -Because the best stories are better together.

Built With

• cloudflarer2
• css3
• express.js
• git
• github
• groqapi
• html5
• javascript
• node.js
• react
• render
• socket.io
• supabase
• vercel
• vite