Streako/How it works
How Streako works
A random ping, three quick photos and a yes or no. Here is exactly what happens, and what happens to your data.
The short version
You pick a habit and a daily window. At a random moment inside that window your phone pings you. You take a quick burst of three photos, a vision model checks that you are really doing the activity, and the photos are discarded. Only then does your streak advance.
The spot-check, step by step
- Set a daily window. For example, "water the plants, 6:00 to 6:15 PM". You choose the activity and the window once.
- A random ping lands inside it. The ping is a local notification scheduled on your phone, 7 to 14 days ahead, at a random offset inside each window. There is no server clock deciding when to ping you, and you cannot predict the exact second.
- A short get-ready countdown. Tapping the ping opens the camera with a brief countdown so you can get the activity in frame.
- Three photos, a fraction of a second apart. The app takes a quick burst. It is photos, not a video clip, and no video or audio is ever recorded.
- The AI check. The frames are checked by a vision model that answers yes or no, with a confidence score, to one question: is this person doing the activity?
- The photos are discarded. The verdict comes back, the frames are thrown away, and your streak either advances or it does not.
Pings and spot-checks come from the phone app. This website never sends you a ping and cannot run a check.
How verification works
A single photo is easy to fool and easy to ruin. Taking three frames a fraction of a second apart gives the check more to work with: a bit of motion, a few angles, and some protection against one frame being blurry or caught mid-blink. The model looks at the burst as a whole and decides whether it matches the activity you chose.
Tuned to be forgiving
No vision model is perfect, and a wrong "no" is far more frustrating than a wrong "yes", because it punishes someone who did the habit. So Streako leans towards giving you the benefit of the doubt, and always offers one re-capture before a check fails. A bad angle or poor light should not end a streak.
What it is checking, and what it is not
The check asks whether the activity is plausibly happening in front of the camera. It is not a lie detector and it is not perfect proof. Its job is to raise the cost of faking a day from "tap a button" to "actually be doing the thing at an unpredictable moment". See the activities we are building checks for to see what the camera looks for in each one.
About accuracy. Streako has not published accuracy figures yet. Each listed activity has to pass a benchmark on real photo bursts, including bad light and awkward angles, before it ships, and any activity that fails is cut. We will publish results only once that benchmark is complete.
Where your data goes
| What | What happens |
|---|---|
| The burst of photos | A few frames are sent to a vision model for a check and never stored. They are discarded as soon as the verdict returns. |
| Video and audio | Never recorded. |
| What we keep | The verdict, a timestamp and the confidence score. Nothing else about the check. |
| API keys | The model is called through a server function, so no vision-model keys live in the app. |
| Your account | You can delete your account from inside the app at any time. |
For the full detail, read the privacy policy.
What you can check
Streako is being built with a small set of listed activities, plus an experimental Custom option. Browse them on the activities page. A Pro plan, when it launches, adds unlimited streaks and a strict mode with two random checks per window, both of which must pass.
Want to understand the thinking? Read self-reported vs verified habits or the comparison with tap-to-check trackers.
Get a note when Streako launches
Streako is pre-launch. Join the waitlist and we email you once, when it is ready for iPhone and Android. Spot-checks and pings come from the phone app, not this website.
Join the waitlist