Case Study · Independent R&D · Adaptive Interface Design
Somatag.
A discreet sensory interface for the moment before overload becomes visible — exploring how physiological signals and low-burden sensory cues might support people carrying sustained cognitive, emotional, physiological, or caregiving load.
- Role
- Founder · Behavioral Systems Designer
- Venture
- SOMA Systems
- Period
- 2023 — Present
- Status
- Active R&D · Second-generation prototype direction · Early sensing and intervention logic in development
- Research Focus
- Can a screenless cue support return before stress becomes visible as crisis?
Thesis
The market has overbuilt monitoring. It has underbuilt return.
Most stress-support tools ask people to notice their own state, interpret a reading, open an app, follow a prompt, and regulate themselves at the exact moment their capacity is already reduced.
That is backwards.
When the nervous system is under load, the intervention should not ask for more attention. It should arrive as a cue.
- Quiet.
- Felt.
- Low-burden.
Somatag explores that missing layer.
Origin
The question came from caregiving — and from years inside healthcare systems.
In caregiver research, behavioral health, pharmacy innovation, and clinical workflow strategy, the same pattern kept appearing:
People often show signs of strain before they can name the strain.
- —Caregivers keep functioning.
- —Clinicians keep absorbing.
- —Patients keep complying until they cannot.
- —Women carry load that does not always look like illness.
The tools offered to them often add work. A screen. A score. A reminder. A prompt.
What would support look like if it worked through the body first?
The Gap
Three failures shaped the design.
- 01
Screens arrive too late.
App-based interventions often ask for attention after the person is already overloaded.
The moment someone needs support may be the same moment they have the least capacity to seek it.
- 02
Monitoring is not the same as care.
Knowing your HRV is low does not automatically help you return.
Information can be useful. But information without intervention can become another source of stress.
- 03
Medical aesthetics create resistance.
Many people who need support do not want to feel like patients.
A device that signals surveillance, fragility, or diagnosis may fail before it is ever used.
Adoption is not cosmetic. It is emotional.
Design Direction
One loop. Detect → Intervene → Measure.
The pendant is not the whole product. It is the first surface.
- Detect
- Identify early shifts from a person's own baseline.
- Intervene
- Deliver a low-burden sensory cue.
- Measure
- Learn whether return begins.
The larger system is the intervention protocol: how the signal is interpreted, when the cue arrives, what kind of cue is offered, and whether the body begins to return.
Jobs to Be Done
The design has to work across three levels.
- Functional
- Help me notice strain earlier than I usually can.
- Do not make me interpret a graph.
- Do not make me perform wellness.
- Social
- Let me wear this in public without explaining myself.
- Let it feel like self-expression, not equipment.
- Emotional
- Help me feel grounded without making me feel watched.
- The cue should feel like presence. Not correction.
R&D Method
Signal architecture first. Form factor second.
- 01
Physiological Synthesis
Mapped HRV, stillness, movement, posture, and contextual signals as possible indicators of changing capacity.
The aim is not to diagnose stress. The aim is to explore when a person may be moving away from baseline and toward overload.
- 02
Persona-Based Simulation
Developed four high-load archetypes to stress-test assumptions about timing, baseline variation, and intervention burden: burned-out caregiver, hypervigilant veteran, perimenopausal professional, and person in recovery.
These simulations helped expose where generic thresholds would fail.
- 03
Competitive + Futures Mapping
Studied adjacent tools across wearables, haptics, calm technology, affective computing, and ambient systems.
Not another monitor. Not another app. A low-burden intervention layer.
- 04
Form + Cue Prototyping
Developed early pendant concepts, haptic zones, sensory cue logic, and jewelry-like form factors.
If the object feels clinical, it may not be worn. If it is not worn, the system cannot learn.
- 05
Prototype Pathway
Second-generation prototype direction is in development through SOMA Systems.
Current work includes sensing logic, intervention timing, wearable form exploration, and partner conversations across hardware, research, and implementation.
Design Criteria
Three constraints guide the work.
- 01
- The cue cannot depend on opening an app. It has to meet the body directly.
- 02
- A useful system cannot treat every nervous system as the same. The signal has to be interpreted against the person's own rhythm.
- 03
- The object should feel wearable, dignified, and emotionally acceptable. Not medicalized. Not performative.
Screenless by default.
Baseline-relative.
Identity-compatible.
Early Market Direction
The shared pattern is not identity. It is load.
Somatag is being explored for people carrying sustained load.
- —Caregivers.
- —Women in midlife and perimenopause.
- —Veterans and first responders.
- —People navigating recovery, burnout, or chronic stress.
The opportunity is not to create another wellness object. It is to build a support layer between passive monitoring and clinical escalation.
- A cue before crisis.
- A ritual before collapse.
- A return path before the system has to intervene with force.
Pilot Thesis
The first proof does not need to be massive. It needs to be precise.
A useful early study would ask:
- —Can participants tolerate and accept the cue?
- —Does the cue arrive at moments that feel relevant?
- —Does the body show signs of return after intervention?
Near-term validation should focus on feasibility, acceptability, signal quality, and intervention burden. Clinical efficacy comes later.
Trust comes first.
Current State
Build the signal. Test the cue. Measure return.
The work is intentionally staged. Do not overclaim.
- What exists now
- Research thesis
- Signal architecture
- Early sensing logic
- Prototype direction
- Form-factor exploration
- Intervention protocol concept
- SOMA Systems commercial architecture
- What still needs validation
- Sensor accuracy
- Cue timing
- User acceptance
- Return patterns
- Feasibility in daily life
- Clinical and implementation pathway
Long-Term Direction
The pendant is the first node. The protocol is the product.
Over time, the intervention layer could move through other surfaces:
- Wearables
- Rooms
- Lighting
- Sound
- Scent
- Ritual
- Human support
The long-term vision is not a single device. It is adaptive capacity infrastructure.
- Support that notices strain earlier.
- Support that responds with less force.
- Support that helps people return before crisis becomes the only visible signal.
Reflection
Somatag is the work I kept circling back to.
The caregiver study showed me that physiology can carry a truth before language does.
CVS showed me that behavior change fails when it adds burden.
Behavioral health work showed me that crisis systems often intervene after the hardest part has already happened.
Somatag sits at the intersection of those lessons.
Not to optimize the body. To help it return.
Collaborate
Build the intervention layer that should already exist.
Somatag is active R&D through SOMA Systems. Open to research partners, feasibility study collaborators, hardware collaborators, and healthcare innovation partners working across HRV, autonomic regulation, caregiving, menopause, recovery, and adaptive environments.