Mission Short

Reclaim your time!Build better screen habits with a virtual pet that lives on your time.Keep it happy and earn rewards with your friends.

The Challenge

Across the world, on average people are spending over 6.5 hours a day on screens, health care experts recommend at most 2. It's leaving all too many feeling drained, distracted, and disconnected. Excessive screen time is linked to poor sleep, anxiety, reduced focus, loneliness, and exposure to harmful online content. The younger generation is especially at risk. Most screen time apps out there are either boring, naggy, or don’t really give you a reason to come back. Zima takes a different approach, making it easier (and more fun) to build better habits, one small step at a time.

The solution

Our solution is to gamify screen time through a virtual pet that reacts to your digital habits. Healthy screen use keeps your Zima happy and unlocks rewards, while overuse affects its mood and progress. Zima also provides simple, visual screen time insights to help you understand your habits. With fun customization, progression, and a social layer to see friends Zimas, it turns self-awareness into motivation making better habits easier to build and stick with. Last edition a juror noted the paradox: an app to reduce app time. The way a running app tracks your runs and makes them soical and engaging, we firmly beleive that Zimas gamified approach, rewards and way of engaging with screen time will have a positive impact on builidng better habits and reducing the amount of time we spend on screens. Taking this feedback, we also explored another form factor that moves feedback off the phone: the Zima Pod. Inspired by last edition’s ambition and our new friendship with finalist Rafael (HydroTjip), we teamed up to prototype the Zima Pod. HydroTjip's lean hardware approach informs our rapid Pod prototyping. The Zima Pod is a pocket-sized ESP32 device with an accelerometer, gyroscope, display, and Bluetooth LE that tracks movement and shows a virtual pet reacting in real time. It syncs with the Zima app so activity fuels quests, streaks, and cooperative challenges, making everyday movement inclusive and rewarding. Key Features of Zima App: • Quest System: Daily and weekly challenges that reward healthy habits and engagement. • Streak System: Earn extra rewards for consecutive days within goal. • Habit Tracker: Build and track routines with rewards for consistency. • Reading Timer: Set and achieve reading goals. • New: App blocking and focus timer. • Next: Leaderboards, social groups, sound design, widget/wearable support. Zima Pod Features: • ESP32 with display, accelerometer, gyroscope, and Bluetooth LE. • Syncs with the Zima app, shows the pet, and converts movement into progress. • Designed to make feedback accessible off-screen and to support inclusive, collaboration-first challenges. The Current State of Development: We have a working Android prototype that accurately tracks real screen time and reflects it through your pet’s behavior. The core game loop and animation system are live with different moods. We have expanded the team and engaged collaborators to speed up delivery. We aim to launch before the end of the year. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ The screen time space is growing, with many new apps. None share Zima’s pet-centric, social, and hardware-extendable vision. Our focus remains the Zima app. The Zima Pod is a down the line extension we are already prototyping.