Cuely

Inspiration

We wanted to make real-world social interactions as seamless as digital ones. Remembering names, faces, and past conversations shouldn’t hold people back from connecting. Cuely was inspired by that gap, combining AR, AI, and emotion recognition to give everyone the social confidence we all wish we had.

What it does

Cuely are AR glasses that identify people in real time, display key context like their name, last conversation, and shared interests, and detect social cues such as engagement and mood. It acts as a real-time memory and social assistant, helping users feel more present and connected during every interaction.

How we built it

We built a prototype using a Raspberry Pi 4 paired with a camera module, running a lightweight computer vision pipeline. The system uses face embeddings and OpenAI’s embeddings API for contextual recall, with a React-based mobile companion app for user data and LinkedIn integration. The glasses’ interface renders cues on a transparent AR display for seamless use.

Challenges we ran into

Hardware constraints were our biggest challenge, balancing performance, heat, and battery life in a compact frame. Face recognition latency and edge inference optimization also required careful tuning. On the UX side, designing an AR overlay that’s informative but unobtrusive took several iterations to get right.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We built a working prototype that can recognize faces, recall stored context, and display information through an AR interface. Our biggest accomplishment was integrating AI-powered recall in real time, showing how hardware and software can merge to make human interaction smarter.

What we learned

We learned how difficult but rewarding it is to blend AI with real-world hardware. Optimizing computer vision on edge devices, designing user-safe AR interfaces, and managing real-time contextual memory gave us a deep understanding of how human-centered technology should feel.

What's next for Cuely

We’re refining our hardware design to fit into a lightweight glasses form factor and adding support for low-latency local inference. Next, we plan to launch a small beta for professionals and expand Cuely’s social recall capabilities — including emotion detection, automatic contact logging, and deeper LinkedIn integration.