OpenAI 2026 hackathon

Umori

Umori turns any camera into a live mood dashboard for cafés, restaurants and stores — anonymous, aggregate sentiment by hour and zone. No faces stored, no identities. Know how your room feels

Solo project by Harout Tanilian · 0 likes · 0 comments

Archive position — measured, not model output

0 likes on Devpost

2,264 of the 7,856 archived projects have more likes, and 5,592 share exactly 0 — so this project's #7,448 place in the like-ranked listing is a tie-break inside that group, not a ranking.

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Likes on Devpost. ▲ marks this project's group.

Show the figures
LikesProjectsShare of archive
05,59271.2%
11,75822.4%
22853.6%
3–41321.7%
5–9751.0%
10+140.2%
Devpost like counts for all 7,856 archived projects, captured when this archive was built.

Executive Summary

What the company appears to be

Umori is a self-reported computer vision platform that turns any standard camera into a live mood dashboard for physical spaces such as cafés, restaurants, and retail stores. It claims to detect facial expressions (happy, neutral, tense, tired) in real-time and aggregate sentiment data by zone and time without storing images or identifying individuals.

What changed

The project was built over 48 hours as part of the OpenAI 2026 hackathon. The author states it includes a full production deployment with three services: a marketing site, an API layer, and a dashboard — all deployed across different hosts.

Single most important open question

Is the system truly privacy-safe by design, or does it rely on assumptions that may not hold under real-world conditions?

This analysis is based entirely on the self-reported project description provided by the author. No external verification, revenue data, customer names, or traction evidence are available.

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What The Product Actually Is

The description states that Umori:

  • Turns any standard camera into a live mood dashboard for physical spaces.
  • Detects faces in video streams and classifies momentary expressions (happy, neutral, tense, tired).
  • Immediately discards frames and face crops after processing.
  • Aggregates expression data into rolling sentiment indexes — overall, by zone, and over time.
  • Streams this data to a live dashboard showing current mood, historical trends, and zone-specific insights.
  • Only aggregate signals leave the edge; no personal identifiers or images are stored.

Inference The system uses OpenCV for capture, YuNet for face detection, FERPlus for expression classification, and ONNX models at the edge. It does not use GPT-5.6 during runtime but leverages it in development via Codex.

Not evidenced No information on actual deployment scale, hardware used beyond a single GPU machine, or whether the system works reliably outside of demo mode with real cameras.

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Positioning & Claim Evolution

The author positions Umori as:

  • A solution to the “invisible experience” problem — while foot traffic is measured, emotional experience is not.
  • An ethical alternative to traditional emotion recognition systems that store faces or track identities.
  • A system where privacy is baked into architecture rather than policy.

Claim evolution

  • Initial inspiration: “Every venue measures how many people walk in, and nobody measures how it felt to be there.”
  • Core value proposition: “Aggregate emotion, zero identity.”
  • Final positioning: “Anonymous. Aggregate. Ethical.”

Inference The product attempts to solve a gap in real-world analytics by focusing on aggregate sentiment instead of individual behavior.

Not evidenced No evidence of prior versions, user feedback loops, or how the positioning evolved from concept to build.

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Target Customer & ICP

The description states that Umori targets:

  • Cafés, restaurants, and retail stores.
  • Venue owners who want insight into customer experience without compromising privacy.

Inference The target is small-to-medium businesses looking for non-intrusive analytics tools to improve operations or understand customer sentiment.

Not evidenced No evidence of specific buyer personas, use cases beyond general space monitoring, or segmentation within the target market.

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Business Model & Pricing Evidence

The description does not state:

  • How Umori intends to monetize.
  • Whether there is a freemium model or enterprise tier.
  • Any pricing structure or revenue streams.

Not evidenced No business model, pricing plans, or monetization strategy are described.

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Technical & Delivery Signals

The system uses:

  • Edge computing with Python services (OpenCV, YuNet, FERPlus).
  • FastAPI for API layer.
  • Next.js dashboard.
  • SQLite for rollups.
  • Server-Sent Events (SSE) for live streaming.
  • Docker and Nginx for deployment.
  • Cloudflare Workers for the marketing site.

Inference The architecture is designed to process data at the edge, minimizing data transfer and enforcing privacy constraints through design.

Not evidenced No evidence of scalability beyond a single GPU machine, performance benchmarks, or security audits.

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Traction & Maturity Signals

The author states:

  • A working camera-to-dashboard loop built in 48 hours.
  • Full production deployment across three services.
  • Real-time face detection running against a live webcam.
  • Demo mode that runs without hardware.

Inference The product is functional and tested, but no evidence of real-world usage or adoption.

Not evidenced No customer data, revenue, or user engagement metrics are provided. No pilot deployments or feedback from actual venues.

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Competitive Context

The description does not mention:

  • Direct competitors.
  • Market size or competitive landscape.
  • How Umori differentiates from existing analytics platforms.

Not evidenced No competitive analysis or market positioning beyond self-description.

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Key Risks & Red Flags

Key risks include:

  • Privacy boundary enforcement: The system claims to be privacy-safe by design, but this has not been independently verified.
  • Technical noise in expression classification: Per-frame emotion detection is noisy; reliance on rolling aggregation may mask inconsistencies.
  • Single developer team: Only one team member (Harout Tanilian) is listed.
  • Limited hardware resources: Shared GPU machine implies potential bottlenecks or scalability issues.

Inference The product’s core promise of privacy-by-design relies heavily on architectural discipline, which may not translate to production environments without rigorous testing.

Not evidenced No third-party audits, security reviews, or performance validation under load.

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Diligence Questions To Ask The Founders

  1. How was the privacy boundary tested? What mechanisms ensure no personal data leaks?
  2. Has the system been validated in real-world settings beyond the demo?
  3. What are the limitations of the current expression classification accuracy and how do they affect aggregate insights?
  4. Are there plans to scale beyond a single GPU or single camera setup?
  5. How does Umori plan to monetize, and what is the go-to-market strategy?

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Investment/Partnership Verdict

Confidence Level Low This is a self-reported project with no external validation, traction, or revenue data. It demonstrates technical capability in building a privacy-focused system within a hackathon timeframe but lacks evidence of commercial viability or scalability.

Verdict Summary

  • The product concept is novel and addresses an unmet need for ethical analytics.
  • However, the lack of real-world testing, customer feedback, and business model makes it difficult to assess its readiness for investment or partnership.
  • The system’s privacy claims are strong in theory but require independent verification.

This analysis reflects only the self-reported information provided. No external data, funding history, or operational metrics were used.

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Source

Submitted to the OpenAI 2026 hackathon on Devpost. Project home on DevPost.

The analysis above was generated by a language model from the project's own one-line description. It is not independent research and contains no verified traction, revenue or customer data.