For those unfamiliar with breathwork, it's a powerful technique that involves controlling your breathing patterns to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and improve overall well-being. It's been an absolute game-changer for my meditation practice and general levels of focus.

However, when I introduced breathwork to friends, many struggled to stay focused or weren't sure if they were doing it correctly. I realized there might be a need for a tool that could guide people through breathwork while providing real-time feedback.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and built BreathQuest- an iOS app that gamifies breathwork using computer vision and audio processing (all done locally using AVKit). The app detects when you're inhaling, exhaling, or holding your breath using your device's microphone and camera. As an object moves across the screen, you collect tokens by inhaling to move the ball upward and exhaling to move it downward. The tokens are strategically placed to guide you through specific breathing patterns to improve physical and mental health.

Some of the challenges I faced:

1. Accurately detecting breathing patterns using audio and video data in real-time

2. Balancing engaging gameplay with the relaxing nature of breathwork

3. Providing meaningful biofeedback to help users track their progress and improve their practice

4. Enabling users to listen to session audio through Bluetooth headphones while the device microphone processed data (Apple made this extremely unwieldy)

Here’s a demo video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzhtRT4rV-g

There are still some questions moving forward, but I'm excited to continue improving the app.

Thanks for reading - would love to hear any feedback!

BreathQuest - https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/id6505010583