🛠️ WakeyTalky – Hackathon Project

🌱 Inspiration

As students, we know what it’s like to be far from home, navigating adult life on our own, making daily decisions without the familiar presence of friends or family. It’s a lot harder than people think. Waking up, going for a run, getting to class on time, all these things feel heavier when you don’t have someone beside you saying, “You’ve got this.”

That’s what inspired WakeyTalky. We wanted to build a voice that speaks directly to you, that knows your name, your goals, your tone preferences, and that uses humor, sass, or kindness to nudge you out of bed and into action, something that is unmistakably human!

We built WakeyTalky so every person, especially those doing life solo, could wake up feeling seen, called out (in a loving way), and ready to show up for themselves.

🧠 What We Learned

How to use large language models to generate dynamic, goal-based motivational scripts
Prompt engineering to control tone, voice, and style of responses
Using text-to-speech APIs to create emotionally expressive audio outputs
Building user-centered features like tone customization (Delicate, Mid-Delicate, Savage)
Creating a UI/UX that feels soft, fun, and emotionally intelligent

🛠️ How We Built It

Frontend: Flutter (cross-platform mobile development)
Backend: Firebase (for user authentication, alarm data, and snooze behavior tracking)
Voice Generation:
- ElevenLabs for expressive spoken messages
- Bark for AI-generated singing
AI Script Generator: GPT-4 prompts use:
- User's name
- Tone preference
- Alarm purpose (e.g., "Go to gym")
- Hobbies and goals

🎨 UI Color Palette

Soft Lilac #d8c5f3
Cream Beige #fdf6ec
Blush Pink #f2d1d1
Forest Green #55786f
Dusty Blue #a6c3dc
Burnt Orange #e07a5f

⚠️ Challenges We Faced

Fine-tuning tone control for humor vs. empathy
Getting GPT-4 to be funny without being harsh
Singing voice generation using Bark—balancing clarity with natural flow
Designing fallback behavior when alarms are ignored (e.g., “Take a picture of your TV to stop the alarm”)
Creating a balance between customization and simplicity in the UI

🚀 What’s Next

Add more voice personalities (e.g., “Hype Coach”, “Grandma”, “Frenemy”, "African aunty")
A “Roast or Boast” board with voice message replays
Let users submit their own wake-up scripts or songs
Add tone