CozyHaus

The jar saves up for a treat you pick together, like dinner out or a movie night. If you live alone, the treat’s all yours.

Berke and I make it at our studio, Third Floor Studios, for iPhone and iPad. I did the research and the product design, and Berke wrote the code. We’re aiming to launch on the App Store in November 2026.

We interviewed people in the US, the Netherlands and Norway. Some lived alone, some with a partner, and some with family, including homes where several generations live together.

The same pattern kept coming up. People forget chores, or never thought of them as chores at all. It hit hardest after a big change, like a first home of your own, or a move from an apartment into a house with a partner where you suddenly have to split the work.

Everyone wanted an app they could shape to their own home, with reminders for the chores their house actually has. Couples also wanted the invisible work out in the open: the jobs one partner quietly does while the other has no idea they’re happening.

Some of the research came from UnStuck, my final case study at DesignLab’s UX Academy, a to-do app for the days when starting is the hard part. Those interviews showed 2 things that hold for a home too: getting started is the hardest bit, and for some people a task stops existing unless someone checks in. So CozyHaus keeps the first step small and puts the whole household on 1 jar.

That gave us 3 kinds of home to design for: living alone, living with a partner, and living as a family. I mapped how each one moves through the app in 7 user flows in Figma, from the first open to inviting someone home. A new screen gets drawn there before Berke builds it, or right after.

The builds go out through TestFlight, Apple’s app for trying an app before it’s public. Testers in the US, the Netherlands and Norway try the builds. Native speakers check the translations, starting with Dutch, and more testers are joining right now. I test the builds myself too and write down what trips me up, and those notes decide what changes next.

You see your home cut open like a dollhouse, every room on show, and whatever’s ready to clean glows. Tap the living room and you’re inside it, where even the sofa has a chore (plump the cushions, about a minute, every day).

The house follows your clock, so it’s evening in the dollhouse when it’s evening at yours. A little house spirit called Hausie lives in there too. In the afternoon it says, “Afternoon! Pick whatever fits the time you have.”

Set-up ticks the basics for your home, and the rest of the chores wait in their rooms until you want them. Each day, Today offers a few small picks sized to your home, like 6 chores in about 20 minutes.

A chore that’s been waiting a while earns a little bonus when you get to it. And if you want a nudge, the reminder names the chore and the time (unload the dishwasher, 7:30), then stays quiet from 10 PM to 8 AM.

Bins get their own reminder the evening before each pickup day.

You pick your first treat together during set-up, and you can change it any time. The fridge keeps count, like 68 of 108 marbles on the way to dinner out.

Stars are separate. Every chore brings a few, and you spend them on the dollhouse: wallpaper, rugs, sofa colors and your own look. Shared spots change when you both agree, and stars aren’t for sale.

It works for 1 person, a couple, housemates or a family. The app splits the leftover chores evenly, in turns or with a roll of the dice, and at the end of the week you see the care you put in together.

There’s a shared calendar for the bins, big jobs, guests and trips. And there’s a fridge: stick a thank-you note on it, or hide one on someone’s chore for later.

CozyHaus is free for 2 people, each on their own phone. The Plus plan makes room for up to 4.

It started as Housiee, then became Houseiee on the preview site, a cousin of Forkiee in the studio’s “-iee” family.

On 11 and 12 October we ran name after name past the trademark registers and the App Store, and checked each one for slang in English and Dutch. Casaboo was the favourite for a day. Chorella was out the moment we found a live chore app already using it.