StudySense • Shipped 2026
Measure the quality of your focus sessions
Role
iOS Engineer
Timeline
Spring 2026
Team
Georgia Tech · CS 4605
Team of 4
Skills
Swift
SwiftUI
CoreMotion
AVFoundation
Combine
Problem
We time our study sessions, but we can't actually tell how focused they were.
Timers and calendars are how everyone tracks focus time. Start a Pomodoro, block off two hours, done. At the end all you know is that you sat there for two hours. Not whether you were locked in or on your phone half the time. The goal was to quantify that.
1. We measure how long, not how focused
A good session today just means a long one. Two hours at your desk counts the same whether you were locked in or scrolling most of it. Nothing tells you how focused you actually were during the block.
2. Screen time apps score the day, not the session
Screen Time and phone-timeout apps roll everything up per day. They can say you spent 40 minutes on Instagram between 9 AM and midnight, but they can't tell you whether the two hours you meant to study were focused.
Solution
Use the phone's sensors to measure how distracted the user is.
Sensors
Accelerometer
Measures when the phone is picked up or moved.
Gyroscope
Measures rotation. Picks up when the phone is turned or flipped.
Front camera
Reads brightness on the screen. Dark means the screen is covered (face down, pocket, bag). Bright means it is exposed.
The original plan used the phone's proximity sensor. It couldn't reliably handle propped-up or face-up placements, so it got swapped for a light reading from the front camera.
States
Focused
Camera sees no light. Phone is face down or covered. Doesn't count against the score.
Potentially distracted
Camera sees light, phone is still. Face up on the desk. Counts half.
Distracted
Camera sees light, phone is moving. Picked up or in use. Counts full.
Every 0.2 seconds the app logs which state the phone is in and turns that into a 0 to 100 focus score.
Process
CS 4605. Four people. Mentor weekly. Two team check-ins.
Proposal
Define the app and the three states.
Data
Label pickups and face-down. Tune thresholds.
Build
Live session tracker on iOS.
Test
Onboarding, streaks, weekly goal.
App
Start
Stopwatch, timer, or Pomodoro.
Report
Focus score and time in each state.
Analytics
Heatmap, streak, recent sessions.
Profile
Weekly goal and achievements.