niko —
swahili for “i am here.”
stay at work.
stay with them.
niko is a quiet companion for the family caregiver who can’t always be home — a presence check that makes the house itself the sensor, so you don’t have to choose between showing up at your job and showing up for the person you love.
set up niko for someone→my niko→
caregivers get started today. patient onboarding is opening soon.
she’s resting quietly
last moved 2m ago
two jobs, one nervous system
work asks one thing of you.
love asks another.
and somewhere between “are you okay?” and “i don’t want to bother you,” the day passes. quietly. for both of you.
financial pressure
~25%
of a caregiver’s income goes to caregiving.
and the cost of absence is even higher — missed shifts, partial returns to work, savings drained quietly. caring for someone you love can’t be a cost center. but it almost always is.
what if presence didn’t cost a workday.
emotional toll
every day, twice.
guilt at work, fear at home.
caregivers report higher rates of depression and burnout than non-caregivers. it’s the cost of always being somewhere else in your head — and the patient feels it too. small misses pile up. the bond bears the weight.
what if the worry could be quieter.
trust, eroding
“i’m fine.”
said even when it isn’t.
the people we love most are the people we don’t want to burden. patients with chronic illness routinely under-report symptoms to spare their caregivers. silence grows. so does distance. the relationship starts to feel like effort.
what if “i’m here” didn’t need words.
sources: ncbi · caregiver action network · psychiatric times · women’s health
“i have to go to work — but i need to know they’re okay.”
how it works
the home itself becomes the sensor.
01
set up the iPad once
place an iPad in the living room. open niko.app. that’s it — no extra hardware, no wearables to charge.
02
the home becomes the sensor
on-device AI watches for movement and presence patterns — not faces, not actions. is they’re up and moving like usual, or has something changed?
03
your phone becomes the reassurance
a glance tells you everything. one breathing circle. one status line. peek in any time. say hello with a tap.
already wear an apple watch? niko can listen for it.
5-min setup →
what you see
one breathing circle. one status line. one tap to say hello.
niko is built for two-second glances between meetings — not another dashboard to manage.
nko
3:42
thursday, apr 23
good afternoon, maya
you’re resting quietly
last moved 14 min ago
live
this is what ben sees
you can hide the view anytime
B
ben is
watching over you
68· 2m
at home — the iPad
a quiet “nightlight” with a breathing presence circle. she sees what you see — the camera is on-device, patient-controlled, never recording.
9:41
nko
maya is
resting quietly
last moved 14 min ago
68· 2m
living room
today
☀️
watched the window
2:18pm
🍞
tea + toast
1:40pm
💬
you checked in
12:55pm
🌅
morning light
11:30am
look in
say hello
at work — your phone
a single glance. how she is, right now. peek in or wave hello in two taps.
who it’s for
for the person who is healing — and everyone who is holding their breath until they’re okay.
niko sits in the gap between “i’m fine” and 911. it’s not a pendant. it’s not a call center. it’s a quiet, trusted way to feel each other across the day.
patient
J
jess, 38
living with cancer · in treatment
after infusion days, my body needs the room to rest. niko lets the people who love me see i’m okay, without me having to text everyone twelve times. i get to heal in peace — and they get to exhale.
patient
S
sam, 41
living with crohn’s · home alone most days
flares come without warning. on hard mornings, "i’m fine" is a lie — but 911 isn’t the answer either. niko speaks for me when i can’t. the breathing circle says: still here, just resting.
caregiver
K
kai, 44
showing up for someone with long covid
some days she can barely make it from bed to couch. i used to call from work, panicked, until she’d answer. now i can glance at my phone between meetings and feel her there. that quiet feeling is everything.
“
why niko exists
the people i love went back to work after my infusion. i didn’t want a pendant. i didn’t want a call center. i wanted them to be able to glance in on me the way they would if they were home.
nothing existed for someone like me. so i built niko.
S
S.
founder
privacy is the product
watchful, never watching.
a tool meant to reduce caregiver anxiety can’t add patient anxiety. niko is built around four hard promises.
on-device, always
movement and presence detection runs locally. no faces, no audio, no recording. nothing leaves the iPad.
patient-controlled visibility
maya decides if the camera is ever live. she can hide it with a single tap and you’ll see "she stepped away" instead.
no medical claims
niko isn’t a clinical device. it’s a presence companion — a way to feel each other across distance.
pause, anytime
one button on the iPad puts the system to sleep. when she comes back, niko comes back. always with consent.