Jia Lin

Welcome to Capsule: the VR experience’s opening scene

The mission

Turning messages from loved ones into places you can step inside.

Capsule is an AI-powered VR experience for older adults and people with disabilities who can’t easily visit family. Loved ones record a message; Capsule wraps it in a 360° AI-generated world with music-therapy audio.

Drawing on reminiscence and music therapy, it’s designed to ease isolation and support memory, with every past message saved in a personal “Memory Palace.”

As the team’s VR/XR product designer, I led user research, designed the flow and 3D interactions, and tested with users, all in 36 hours.

Accomplishment

Meta VR Hackathon Winner

Stanford XR Hackathon, “Immerse the Bay”

180hackers competing
36hours to build
4people on the team

Shown to industry sponsors including Meta, NVIDIA, Amazon Web Services, and Snapchat.

01 · Research

Two sides of the same missed phone call.

We built personas for both ends of the relationship: a parent who misses her son but worries she’s a bother, and a son who wants her to know he’s thinking of her. Then we looked at how existing VR and reminiscence tools fall short for older users.

JaniceParent, 70s
“I think about Mark all the time. I just don’t want to bother him.”
NeedsA way to feel close to family without having to ask for their time.
MarkSon, lives far away
“I want Mom to know I’m thinking about her, even when I can’t call.”
NeedsA way to leave her messages she can come back to.

Product	Strength	Gap for families
AlcoveAARP × Rendever	Family-oriented virtual home for shared activities	Tied to specific headsets; often needs tech help to set up
RendeverSenior living	Shared travel and live events that reduce isolation	Built for institutions, not individual families
MyndVRTherapeutic VR	Reminiscence therapy built with healthcare professionals	Little focus on real-time connection with family
CapsuleOur approach	Personal messages from loved ones, turned into worlds to revisit	Designed for one family, one relationship at a time

02 · Flow

Simple enough for a first-time headset user.

Every step is one clear choice, with guided onboarding, large targets, and smooth transitions so no one gets lost in 3D space.

Put on headsetGuided onboarding in mixed reality
ChooseTwo objects, two paths
Capsule BottleNew messages
Sand CastlePast messages
Immersive message360° world + video from a loved one; record a reply
Memory PalaceRevisit any past capsule

Saved to the Memory Palace

03 · The experience

From a message in a bottle to a world you can stand in.

A message in a bottleNew messages from family arrive as glowing capsules, waiting to be opened.
A world to step intoEach message opens a 360° AI-generated scene from the memory, with music-therapy audio and the loved one’s video at the center.
A palace of memoriesEvery message is kept on a quiet beach, each capsule marked by an object from the memory: a snowman, a cake, a seashell.

04 · How we built it

Unity, a Quest 3, and a lot of learning in 36 hours.

Technology
- Unity + C#
- Meta Quest 3
- Skybox AI for memory environments
- Whisper for audio transcription
Design
- FigJam for planning
- Figma for 2D interfaces
- Blender, Unity, SketchFab & Meshy for 3D assets

05 · What I learned

Empathy is the spec.

Challenges
- Learning Unity and the Quest 3 from scratch
- Designing intuitive 3D interfaces for older users
- Finding low-poly assets that felt intimate
- Smooth scene transitions
Lessons
- Collaborative problem-solving flattens steep learning curves
- Designing for older adults starts with how they live
- VR can meaningfully address loneliness and memory loss

06 · What’s next

Where Capsule could go.

Memory conversationsAn LLM companion for memory-focused conversations.
Therapeutic mementosVoice + image mementos to support people with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
Easier onboardingBetter spatial cues for first-time headset users.

Capsule on Devpost (opens in a new tab)