How we built Lumi
Lumi started with one question: what if there was a small friend on your screen who made your day a bit lighter, and who could actually help when you were stuck? Not a chatbot in a browser tab, but a character with a face, a body and moods, living right next to the clock.
Drawing him live
Most desktop pets play little video loops. Lumi doesn't. Every frame of him is drawn live, from his eyes to his tiny arms. That's harder to build, but it's the secret behind how alive he feels: he can mix 100+ expressions, follow your cursor with his eyes, and switch from giggling to sleepy without any jump.
A life, not a feature list
Once he had a face, he needed a life. So Lumi brushes his teeth, eats breakfast, plays football and cricket, flies kites, lights a diya at Diwali, and dances 80 different moves, from bhangra and garba to the moonwalk. He has 11 costumes, games to play with you, a focus timer, and a diary of your days together.
A brain that's yours
Lumi thinks with Google's Gemini model, using your own free key. That was a deliberate choice: your conversations go straight from your computer to Google, not through our servers, and the key is stored in your system's secure key store, never in a plain file.
Cute, not creepy
A companion that can see your screen or hear your voice has to earn trust. In Lumi, every one of those powers is off until you switch it on. A blue light shows when he's watching, he refuses to look at banking or password windows, and he asks before doing anything you can't undo.
Tested like crazy
Lumi has thousands of automated checks. Every new version is also built and tested on real Windows and Mac machines, including a robot tester that opens Lumi's real windows and takes screenshots, before it reaches you.
What's next
More antics, more costumes, more games, and lots of small polish. If you have an idea for Lumi, email us. Some of his best tricks came from people like you.