"Ovy": How an innovative cycle app was created from a shock diagnosis

A shock diagnosis and a miscarriage led to a really good idea and sisters Lina and Eva Wüller founded the innovative cycle app Ovy.

via Sabrina

11/21/2017, 08:47

Through thick and thin: Eva and Lina Wüller developed the cycle app Ovy together.

Frau liegt im Bett und blickt glücklich auf ihr Smartphone, in der anderen Hand hält sie ein Thermometer — The thermometer automatically transmits the measured wake-up temperature to the Ovy app via Bluetooth. It measures accurately to two decimal places and can therefore detect irregularities in a woman's cycle.

Drei Beispiele, wie die App auf dem Smartphone aussieht, und das erste Thermometer sowie das Bluetooth-Thermometer — From mid-May, the Ovy app can be used with the first version of the basal thermometer, which requires the temperature to be entered manually. The Bluetooth thermometer will be available from the end of 2017.

Lina is 27 when the doctors diagnose her with a menstrual cycle disorder, the result of a previous illness. And although she hadn't given any thought to her own family planning until then, this diagnosis comes as a shock: having children will be almost impossible for Lina.

The impossible becomes possible

She and her sister Eva had been using the temperature method of contraception for several years to avoid having to take hormones every day. A gynecologist had advised the young woman to record her cycle by hand. "In our eyes, however, documentation with 'pen and paper' was very error-prone. Even cycle apps that already existed on the market did not give us the desired result: either temperature values were not taken into account in the algorithm or the applications were too cumbersome to use." However, Lina would not have expected this result in her situation: Just one month after her diagnosis, she becomes pregnant unplanned.

When she receives the news, she and Eva are living together in an apartment. They experience this emotional time together until Lina loses the baby in the 13th week of her pregnancy. She is devastated and so many questions remain unanswered. In her search for answers, Lina finds out that one in three women has problems getting pregnant straight away and that one in four births ends in miscarriage.

Lina and Eva want to address a taboo subject

Lina decides it's time to take action and raise awareness of this taboo subject in society. Together with Eva, who has been using the basal body temperature method for many years, she is working on an innovative solution for women to achieve their "Fertility Goals" (pregnancy or natural contraception). The two sisters have found a way to connect the cycle app and thermometer to determine the individual cycle based on basal body temperature: from the fertile phase to ovulation and the next period. An algorithm in the app uses the waking temperature and other body signals such as discharge, period and energy level to calculate which of her four cycle phases the user is in.

But that's not all. Lina and Eva want more than just a simple cycle app and have invented Ovy, a kind of health coach that not only accompanies women through their cycle but also provides advice on nutrition and fitness in the respective hormonal phases. "Based on the current phase, the Ovy Health Coach provides individual tips to improve the user's well-being. We say: Ovy helps women to 'hack' their cycle."