Vibe AI: Wearable Nutrition Tracker Powered by Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3
Manually tracking your food is tedious, time-consuming, and unsustainable for most people – over 90% of users quit within months. That’s the problem Jacob Trebil set out to solve with Vibe — a necklace-sized wearable that uses AI and computer vision to passively track what you eat and help you stay on track with your health goals.
Vibe AI wellness copilot tracking a meal.
It’s sleek, smart, and built to be as effortless as wearing a necklace. And with the help of Seeed Studio’s XIAO ESP32S3 Sense, Vibe went from dorm-room prototype to sold-out wearable in under a year.
The Birth of Vibe
Jacob’s journey began during a summer residency at the Augmentation Lab in Cambridge, MA. “I knew I wanted to build an AI wearable,” Jacob recalls, “but wasn’t sure about the use case–until Seeed, a sponsor of the program, introduced us to their XIAO ESP32S3 Sense modules.”
Building the first Vibe prototypes using the Seeed Studio ESP32S3 Sense. It was initially called Fresh.
Living on a foam pad between two other founders on Harvard campus, Jacob taught himself firmware, 3D modeling, and 3D printing. Within weeks, the first Vibe prototype (initially called Fresh) emerged.
Early hardware prototypes.
Fresh prototype built at Augmentation Lab
Hardwares
As for the hardware, Jacob needed something small, powerful, and energy-efficient — something that could handle vision tasks, wireless communication, and daily wear. Therefore, he used:
- Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 Sense
- LiPo battery with custom power management
- 3D-printed pendant case
The heart of Vibe is the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 Sense, which provides:
- Compact all-in-one solution combining microcontroller, camera, and wireless connectivity
- Efficient power management for all-day wear
- Small form factor enabling pendant-sized design
- Built-in BLE for seamless image transmission
“Seeed’s hardware solutions made it possible to go from idea to prototype without designing custom PCBs,” Jacob notes. “That shaved weeks off development time and significantly reduced early costs. Seeed’s products let me iterate fast, test new ideas, and stay focused on building a great product, without having to design new hardware.“
How Vibe Works
Vibe is designed to be worn like a pendant — small enough to forget you’re wearing it, yet smart enough to track what you eat in real time. The onboard camera captures a photo every minute during meals and transmits it over Bluetooth to the Vibe mobile app. There, powerful vision AI models analyze the image, recognize the food, and log its nutritional content. Unlike phone-based trackers that interrupt your meals, Vibe works passively in the background. It uses contextual clues like packaging, your kitchen setting, or restaurant scenes to boost accuracy to over 80%. All of this happens without the device needing to run any AI models onboard, keeping battery usage low and performance high.
Currently, the image data is sent to secure Vision LLMs for processing and stored with encryption at rest. In the future, the team plans to run these models directly on users’ iPhones to improve privacy, reduce latency, and ensure that only relevant, food-related data is retained. This seamless approach reflects Vibe’s core philosophy: removing friction from habit-building by making health tracking invisible, automatic, and genuinely supportive.
“Most people quit calorie tracking after a few weeks,” Jacob explains. “Vibe eliminates manual logging completely – no more interruptions, no guilt, and no wasted time.”
What’s Next for Vibe?
Vibe v1 was just the beginning. With the initial version already sold out and hundreds on the waitlist, the team is now working on Vibe v2—a smaller, sleeker, and more energy-efficient evolution of the AI wellness copilot. By optimizing power consumption and refining the form factor, the next generation of Vibe aims to be even more wearable.
Looking ahead, the roadmap includes expanding functionality beyond nutrition tracking, with planned features like hydration monitoring and workout detection. As AI and wearable tech continue to converge, Vibe is set to lead the charge in making health support both intelligent and effortless.
“We have a rare opportunity to make health effortless and automatic. I’m excited to keep building tools that help people flourish—and grateful to Seeed Studio for helping make that possible.” – Jacob Trebil
What’s Next for Vibe?
Vibe isn’t just another gadget — it’s a glimpse into the future of wearable AI that quietly improves your life. And it’s already making waves: 1.1M+ views across social media, a sold-out first batch, and hundreds on the waitlist.
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