I'm a doctor and built a responsive breathing app for anxiety and sleep
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 /…
In plain words
Lungy is an iOS app designed to help with anxiety and sleep through interactive breathing exercises that respond to user breathing in real-time. Built by an NHS doctor, the app uses a 3D soft body solver to create engaging visual feedback, with objects that inflate as the user breathes. A Vision Pro version called Lungy Spaces is also available. The app was redesigned and rebuilt from its original 2023 launch, offering a more engaging approach to guided breathing practices.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
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
Does a similar job
all alternatives →- IMI'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety2023 · lungy.app · ▲666
Hey HN! Some more info: I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pi-A (https://www.pi-a.io) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It hopefully has many aspects of interest to the HN community – real-time fluid, cloth and soft body sims running on the phone’s GPU. My background is as a junior surgical trainee and I started building Lungy in 2020 during the first COVID lockdown in London. During COVID, there were…
- IEInteractive exercises for stress and anxiety that respond to breathing2023 · apps.apple.com · ▲31
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 app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It’s been one year since Lungy launched (here’s the original ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34534615) - I was absolutely delighted with the response. One year on, we have re-designed and rebuilt the whole app, and added a real-time, 3D soft body solver which gives some…
- IBI built an interactive cloth solver for Apple Vision Pro2024 · youtube.com · ▲99
A bit more context - the cloth sim is part of my app, Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). It's designed to be an active meditation / relaxation app, so you can play relaxing instruments in space and immersive breathing exercises. The original Lungy is a breathing app available for iOS, that uses real-time breathing with interactive visuals. The cloth sim is a Verlet integration, running on a regular grid. For now, I have tried a couple of different cloth scenes - a sort of touch reactive 'pad', where different parts of the cloth are mapped to different sounds and a cloth that blows…
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