Tomodachi
A small wearable wellness device inspired by the Tamagotchi — a round touchscreen pixel art pet that reflects how well you're taking care of yourself. Log sleep, water, and focus breaks and the dog thrives. Skip self-care and it shows.
Tomodachi is a macro-HCI prototype proposal built with Mai Al Shaaban for Professor Dylan Cashman’s HCI course.
The core argument: most wellness apps fail because they rely on surveillance, streaks, and shame. Tomodachi uses emotional attachment instead — you care about the dog, so you care for yourself. This is the Tomodachi Effect: people form genuine emotional bonds with digital creatures and change their behavior as a result.
The device snaps onto accessories like a clip or wristband via embedded N52 neodymium magnets, and delivers ambient feedback (haptic nudges, a glance at the screen) without pulling you out of what you’re doing — treating the body itself as a computing environment.
Components
- Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 — the brain (21×17mm, WiFi/Bluetooth ready)
- GC9A01 + CST816S — 240×240 round color touchscreen with tap/swipe input
- 500mAh LiPo battery + TP4056 USB-C charging module
- N52 neodymium disc magnets for modular accessory snapping
Firmware
TFT_eSPI— pixel art rendering on the GC9A01CST816SArduino library — gesture recognitionAdafruit_DRV2605— haptic vibration patterns
The enclosure is modeled in Blender, verified against manufacturer STEP files, and 3D-printed in PLA at ~35–40mm diameter.