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Show HN: I'm a doctor and built a responsive breathing app for anxiety and sleep(apps.apple.com)
38 points by lukko 8 hours ago | 14 comments

Hey HN!

I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pia (https://www.piahealth.co) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an iOS app that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It’s been two years since Lungy launched (here’s the original ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34534615) and it's had a huge update and complete redesign. We rebuilt the whole app, and added a real-time 3D soft body solver which gives some really cool interactions like blobs / objects that inflate as you breathe. We also made a version for Vision Pro, called 'Lungy Spaces'.

My background is as a surgical trainee and I started building Lungy in 2020 during the first COVID lockdown in London. During COVID, there were huge numbers of patients coming off ventilators and patients are often given breathing exercises on a worksheet and disposable plastic devices called incentive spirometers to encourage deep breathing. This is intended to prevent chest infections and strengthen breathing muscles that have weakened. I noticed often the incentive spirometer would sit by the bedside, whilst the patient would be on their phone – this was the spark that lead to Lungy!

Since making the first version we’ve made exercises fully customisable (you can dial in exact timings for each breath phase), added new breathing indicators, learning modules, e.g. self-care for anxiety symptoms, and lots of new visuals. The free version gives you access to a new breathing exercise each day, whilst premium unlocks the full library of exercises, exercise data and visuals..

The visuals are mostly built using Metal (a couple use SpriteKit) and there are lots to choose from - boids, cloth sims, fluid sims, a hacky DLA implementation, rigid body + soft body sims - each one reacts to breath and touch. The audio uses AudioKit with a polyphonic synth and a sequencer plays generated notes from a chosen scale (you can mess around with the sequencer and synth in Settings/Create Music). The nice thing about the visuals + audio being generative is that the download size is relatively small with no other downloads. We’re still working on improving the breath detection, using ML - currently, it uses microphone input, with optional camera input to guide positioning.

We’re also close to finishing the medical device version - http://lungy.health - designed as a pulmonary rehab platform for patients with asthma, it should hopefully undergo early trials in the UK in 2026.

Thanks for reading - would love to hear any feedback!

https://www.lungy.app

Lungy Version 2 here: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1545223887

spondylosaurus 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Any plans for an Android version? I'd love to try it, but I'm on the other side of the Apple App Store wall :(

subharmonicon 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I recall the original post about Lungy.

Having had an incentive spirometer prescribed for post-surgical use after being on bypass, my experience was that it seemed boring and like a waste of time, so anything that makes breathing exercises more engaging and feel more worthwhile is a win.

fao_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A friend of mine was working on this exact thing about 2 years ago in collaboration with the NHS before Google pulled half their stack out from under them. Incredibly sad on the whole but glad that it's happening in some form.

amelius 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

But that it only supports iOS may trigger emotions ranging from annoyance and sadness to anger and rage.

lukko 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ah was it based on SpiroSmart at all? It's a smartphone tech Google purchased in around 2017 [0].

Yep, it has been tricky to get over the line as a medical device and used in the NHS, hence the focus more on wellness initially.

[0] https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/alphabet-acquires-seno...

amelius 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

FDA approval pending?

biglung420 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Me and my brethren have been using this tons :) I could most respectfully request a breathholding feature, hyping one up to hold ones breath for a minute and reminding to pass it left

hinkley an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When I was a boy they called that “biofeedback”. Damn kids ruin everything.

lukko an hour ago | parent [-]

Hahaha - we are adding in HRV & heart rate tracking - then I think we can officially call it 'biofeedback' :)

zackify an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How would you compare to a general meditation app like “Waking Up” curious if you’ve used it.

lukko an hour ago | parent [-]

In general, Lungy is more an active form of meditation, so rather than closing your eyes and listening to guided instructions or following a timer, it relies on the combination of real-time feedback (showing your breathing with interactive visuals) and the physiological effects of changing your breath pattern for relaxation. So, you focus on what is going on in the moment, as a form of mindfulness.

It's less 'cognitive' than other apps, but a few studies have shown breathing exercises are as effective for stress as guided meditation, but also much simpler to follow [0]. I'm always slightly surprised at how effective breathing is in helping relaxation - although it obviously makes a lot of physiological sense. So, Lungy is designed to make a practice simple / fun to do each day.

[0] https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2023/02/cyclic-sighin...

r0fl an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I tried this when it first came out but it always felt gimmicky and didn’t work randomly Will give it another try

Great idea and ux

lukko an hour ago | parent [-]

Cool, thanks - its had quite a few updates since then. Will be interested to hear what you think.

prox 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Thanks for the reminder, I used to use Lungy a lot. Forgot about it.

I just tried v1 again, it blocks me from using it because it wants the microphone but I don’t want to give access. Can you make it optional in settings? Just following the visual is enough for me.

Don’t think it needed it when I used it. Does v2 also have the same issue?