Physiotherapy is a pain. Literally.
But the real challenge isn’t the exercises - it’s the lonely grind of doing them in your living room, day after day, wondering if you’re even doing them right. After dealing with back pain ourselves, we started asking: Could we build a friendly, interactive physio coach - powered by AI - that actually helps people stick to their recovery routines?
We called it Mova. This is the story of how we built it.
🦿 What We Built
Mova is a conversational web app for guided physiotherapy. It generates fully personalised physio sessions - tailored to your injury, stage, and even your mood - and guides you through them using dynamic voice and video.
It combines:
- AI-generated videos (Tavus)
- Natural voice narration (ElevenLabs)
- Real-time, chat-based session guidance (Bolt.new + React)
Users can:
- Select an injury or recovery goal (e.g. post-ACL surgery)
- Watch tailored video demos with real human narration
- Get gentle reminders, encouragement, and progress tracking - all via conversation
😬 What Nearly Broke Us
- Frontend regressions every time we tried to “just tweak one thing”
- Midnight UX rethinks when flows felt more like Clippy in a tracksuit than a coach
- Voice and video tuning challenges that reminded us AI can be powerful - but also requires thorough QA
We got through it. Mostly fuelled by coffee, stubbornness, and those rare “okay, this might actually be cool” moments.
🔥 What Surprised Us
Honestly? It worked better than we expected.
We were prepared for feedback like “cool tech,” but what we got was far more personal:
“I’d use this for my mum after her knee surgery.”
“Could this work for stroke rehab?”
“Can you do Pilates next?”
That was the moment we realised this wasn’t just a demo - it was a solution to a real human problem.
💡 What’s Theoretically Next?
This is where a hackathon project meets reality. If we were to explore a real future for Mova, it wouldn’t be a blind leap. It would require integrity, clinical input, and a ruthless focus on what actually works.
- Clinical validation first: The next step isn’t more code - it’s conversations with physiotherapists and rehab specialists.
- A niche, not an ocean: We wouldn't try to be “The Physio App for Everyone.” We’d focus on one high-impact use case - like post-surgery rehab - where compliance is critical and outcomes are trackable.
🧠 What We Learned
- AI is powerful - but only when wrapped in empathy. The tech is impressive, but the real magic is in tone, pacing, and encouragement.
- People crave simplicity, not features. Mova worked because it did one thing clearly: guiding you, step by step, through your physio.
- The line between hackathon and startup is thinner than you think. One good idea, one weekend, and one working demo can be enough to ask what if...?
Thanks to the organisers and everyone who’s sent feedback. We built Mova in a few weeks - but the questions it raised will stick with us for much longer.
🦾
Luke & Nágela
https://getmova.online
https://devpost.com/software/mova
Top comments (0)