This is brilliant Amit! My kiddo LOVED it - he had some knotty problems with regard to the mental game of football and keeping friends even when you disagree & argue. He found Calm Buddy's affirming tone comforting, he liked being asked questions and appreciated the tailored advice for elementary age kids. More via pm/ msg.
Yes, a couple of quick things. The bit that worked brilliantly was validating the emotions and affirming positive intent, as well as appreciation. What could be better - shorter responses (some sentences were too long, 7yr olds run out of patience and attention :-D), and more pauses between responses. Calm Buddy would ask a question, then say something again with a 1-2 sec pause, then again with another 1-2sec pause. Would work better to validate-affirm-appreciate, and then ask a simple question then pause a bit longer for a response.
Shorter sentences make a ton of sense, the next update will be more intelligent and respond to a single idea, so seven-year-old attention doesn’t vaporise.
Longer pauses feature after each question, has been in experimentation mode for couple of weeks but I haven't pushed it out yet, been trying variety of time duration for pauses. I will add a 4-second “thinking” gap so Calm Buddy waits for the answer instead of stacking.
I’ll push those tweaks out soon and ping you when they’re live. If you & your son are up for a second round after that, I’d love to hear how it feels. Thanks again for helping turn Calm Buddy into a kid-friendly teammate!
Happy to help! One other suggestion - it's possible many others may use Calm Buddy in the same way as us: child having the primary conversation but the parent is present and supporting the child + providing safety & comfort as needed. Personally, I would not give unsupervised access to my child for digital technologies. Is dual voice recognition built in, can the app distinguish that both child and a caregiver are speaking & track the separate voices? That would allow more nuanced understanding in the convo and perhaps more tailored responses too.
Great point, Abhilasha. I imagine lot of parents (including myself) would want to stay present during the conversation.
For now Calm Buddy only hears one blended stream, so it can’t separate “child's voice” from “caregiver's voice.” I’m exploring speaker-diarization tech that tags each voice in real time. I will need to test the multi-speaker mode to see how it performs before implementing it into Calm Buddy.
As soon as I have a prototype, would you and your son be willing to beta-test the the new version?
Hi Amit, your AI is really good! I vent about my sleep deprivation, the answers sounds like human and I like the line by line text message, similar to real texting.
I understand giving the list of my emotions is important but I find it distracting in the AI answers.
The solution it gave me is actionable and on-point. Well done!
I guess the development of the AI would be hyper-personalization of the answers based on the history or knowledge it knows about us. Cheers!
Lia, thank you for kicking the tires and sharing such thoughtful notes! 🙏
Line‑by‑line texting does come in handy when trying to reference earlier parts of the conversation.
Emotion list feedback is super helpful, I added it to make the “mood shift” transparent, but I can see that it can also pull you out of the moment, which defeats the purpose. I’m experimenting with a more subtle UI, maybe a tiny mood icon or a tap‑to‑reveal option.
Hyper‑personalization is the holy grail, so Calm Buddy can remember patterns (e.g., you’re sleep‑challenged this week) and tailor responses without you repeating yourself. If you’re open, I’d love to circle back when that prototype is ready and hear how it lands.
Thanks again for helping shape where this goes. Hope you had a restorative night’s rest.
This sounds fantastic. Signed up for early rollout!
BTW, try PillowTalk. If I'm not mistaken, I think it tries to do something similar, but I could be mistaken. I wasn't a fan of PIllowtalk b/c it just seemed aimless and circular. Yours' seems more focused. Either way, I figured I'd suggest it so that you can see what other apps are doing, and avoid the same pitfalls.
Wow! So cool to hear what you’ve been up to! I’ve missed hearing thoughtful things from you (I think the last essay I read was the voice essay, back in WOP.) So interesting how your coaching background contributed to this. Loved reading this.
Really well done. Intriguing sentiment analysis. Thank you for your work!
Thanks for reading and appreciate the encouragement!
If you end up trying Calm Buddy, I’d love to hear one thing it got right and one thing that felt off.
This is brilliant Amit! My kiddo LOVED it - he had some knotty problems with regard to the mental game of football and keeping friends even when you disagree & argue. He found Calm Buddy's affirming tone comforting, he liked being asked questions and appreciated the tailored advice for elementary age kids. More via pm/ msg.
Hey Abhilasha, thank you! Thrilled your son tried Calm Buddy and that it helped.
I’m actively improving the kid-friendly tone, so any details you can share about what landed or what confused him, would be gold.
Huge thanks for bringing the next generation of calm-seekers aboard! 😄
Yes, a couple of quick things. The bit that worked brilliantly was validating the emotions and affirming positive intent, as well as appreciation. What could be better - shorter responses (some sentences were too long, 7yr olds run out of patience and attention :-D), and more pauses between responses. Calm Buddy would ask a question, then say something again with a 1-2 sec pause, then again with another 1-2sec pause. Would work better to validate-affirm-appreciate, and then ask a simple question then pause a bit longer for a response.
Shorter sentences make a ton of sense, the next update will be more intelligent and respond to a single idea, so seven-year-old attention doesn’t vaporise.
Longer pauses feature after each question, has been in experimentation mode for couple of weeks but I haven't pushed it out yet, been trying variety of time duration for pauses. I will add a 4-second “thinking” gap so Calm Buddy waits for the answer instead of stacking.
I’ll push those tweaks out soon and ping you when they’re live. If you & your son are up for a second round after that, I’d love to hear how it feels. Thanks again for helping turn Calm Buddy into a kid-friendly teammate!
Happy to help! One other suggestion - it's possible many others may use Calm Buddy in the same way as us: child having the primary conversation but the parent is present and supporting the child + providing safety & comfort as needed. Personally, I would not give unsupervised access to my child for digital technologies. Is dual voice recognition built in, can the app distinguish that both child and a caregiver are speaking & track the separate voices? That would allow more nuanced understanding in the convo and perhaps more tailored responses too.
Great point, Abhilasha. I imagine lot of parents (including myself) would want to stay present during the conversation.
For now Calm Buddy only hears one blended stream, so it can’t separate “child's voice” from “caregiver's voice.” I’m exploring speaker-diarization tech that tags each voice in real time. I will need to test the multi-speaker mode to see how it performs before implementing it into Calm Buddy.
As soon as I have a prototype, would you and your son be willing to beta-test the the new version?
Thank you for your incredible feedback!
Yes absolutely, keep me posted!
Hi Amit, your AI is really good! I vent about my sleep deprivation, the answers sounds like human and I like the line by line text message, similar to real texting.
I understand giving the list of my emotions is important but I find it distracting in the AI answers.
The solution it gave me is actionable and on-point. Well done!
I guess the development of the AI would be hyper-personalization of the answers based on the history or knowledge it knows about us. Cheers!
Lia, thank you for kicking the tires and sharing such thoughtful notes! 🙏
Line‑by‑line texting does come in handy when trying to reference earlier parts of the conversation.
Emotion list feedback is super helpful, I added it to make the “mood shift” transparent, but I can see that it can also pull you out of the moment, which defeats the purpose. I’m experimenting with a more subtle UI, maybe a tiny mood icon or a tap‑to‑reveal option.
Hyper‑personalization is the holy grail, so Calm Buddy can remember patterns (e.g., you’re sleep‑challenged this week) and tailor responses without you repeating yourself. If you’re open, I’d love to circle back when that prototype is ready and hear how it lands.
Thanks again for helping shape where this goes. Hope you had a restorative night’s rest.
Yes absolutely, would love to hear the updates!
I’m testing a new “before/after mood check-in” feature this week.
I’ll ping you once it’s live so you can take it for a spin. Appreciate you staying in the loop!
Amit!! This is brilliant! I just tried it, and signed up for the beta.
On reading your post, I feel like it is the sleeping giant - the slack app that was built gor you that became the "thing".
Kerena, thank you! 🙏🏽
So thrilled that you signed up for the beta. When you have a moment to try CalmBuddy.app would love to hear how was your experience:
1. What scenario you first try it in (venting, brainstorming, etc.)?
2. Did the responses felt genuinely helpful or still a bit robotic?
3. Anything that surprised you, good or bad?
Your insights are always so valuable.
This sounds fantastic. Signed up for early rollout!
BTW, try PillowTalk. If I'm not mistaken, I think it tries to do something similar, but I could be mistaken. I wasn't a fan of PIllowtalk b/c it just seemed aimless and circular. Yours' seems more focused. Either way, I figured I'd suggest it so that you can see what other apps are doing, and avoid the same pitfalls.
Thank you for signing up on the early access list. I appreciate the PillowTalk tip, I will check it out.
When you get your invite, I’d love your candid take on the experience.
Wow! So cool to hear what you’ve been up to! I’ve missed hearing thoughtful things from you (I think the last essay I read was the voice essay, back in WOP.) So interesting how your coaching background contributed to this. Loved reading this.
Thank you Jenny. The Voice essay feels like ages ago, so I’m glad this update found you.