Hey builders,
The moment is finally here. We’re so excited to announce the winners of Nowa’s Free Weekend Hackathon, which took place on August 8 and 9!
What was the Free Weekend?
For one full weekend, we made Nowa completely free. Unlimited AI, and free deployment to the App Store, Play Store, and web. No limits, no commitment. Just you and your idea.
The goal was simple: give everyone the chance to turn an idea into a real, serious app — mobile, web, or desktop.
And to make things even more fun, we ran a hackathon on top of it. The top 3 apps built during the weekend would each win:
Two winners were picked by our team, and one was picked by our community on r/nowa — the app with the most upvotes won.
How we picked the winners
Honestly? It was hard. So many of the apps were great. But we had to choose, and here’s what we looked at:
The app should look and feel great to use. Design matters a lot these days — if you want to build an app people love, you can’t ignore it. That doesn’t mean it needs to be complicated. The best designs are simple, with a look and feel that matches what the app actually does.
Is the app enjoyable to use? Clean layouts, smooth interactions, and small details that make you smile.
The app should solve a real problem for a real person — a problem they actually care about. A beautiful app that doesn’t solve anything gets ignored.
The closer your app is to something you can ship to real people, the better. If your app needs a backend, it should have one. This is why a small app that works beats a big app with lots of half-finished features. Every time. Our advice: build the smallest thing that solves the problem, make the experience exceptional, release it, and then improve it with real user feedback. Apps don’t win on the number of features. They win on how well they solve the problem.
Alright, enough talking. Let’s meet the winners! 🎉
🥇 Aevo Bento — by Christoph Geiser
That’s the idea behind Aevo Bento. Christoph noticed a real problem with task managers: a list treats everything as equal. A two-minute phone call sits in the same row as a three-month project. Something due in October looks exactly like something due tomorrow.
So he threw the list away. In Aevo Bento, your whole workspace is one canvas. Your tasks appear as tiles, and the size of each tile shows how urgent it is right now. A task due tomorrow gets a big tile. A project whose next step is eight weeks away shrinks into a small one — and grows back when it matters again. You can see where to look before you even read anything.
Our favorite detail? The app pays attention when you postpone things. Push a task’s date five times, and it climbs up and forces a decision: do it, or drop it. In most tools, the fifth postponement looks exactly like the first.
And there’s no AI deciding your priorities for you. Only you can weigh what matters — the app’s job is just to make that visible.
It’s thoughtful, it’s polished, and it’s a completely fresh take on something we all use every day.
👉 Check out Aevo Bento on r/nowa
Quick tip: the app is in German by default, but you can switch to English after signing up.
🏅 HomeBrain — by Vijayakumar Panchakshari (Community Winner!)
This one was chosen by you — HomeBrain got the most upvotes on r/nowa, and we can see why.
Quick question: when was your HVAC last serviced? What model is your water heater? Which warranty expires next? If you’re like most homeowners, you have no idea — and you’d have to dig through drawers and old emails to find out.
HomeBrain fixes that. It’s an AI-powered app that creates a living memory of your home. It connects everything — your appliances, maintenance history, warranties, photos, projects, and expenses — and turns all of it into answers, reminders, and helpful insights.
Instead of searching, you just ask: “What needs my attention?” And HomeBrain tells you.
It solves a problem almost every homeowner has, and it does it in a way that feels effortless. Congrats, Vijayakumar — the community has spoken!
👉 Check out HomeBrain on r/nowa
🥇 Flujo — by lesthertod
Most period trackers require accounts, push your health data to the cloud, and lock basic features behind subscriptions. Some even sell your data. Lesthertod spent the weekend building the exact opposite.
Flujo is 100% offline. All your data stays on your device — no account, no internet connection, no hidden fees. There’s even a PIN lock screen to keep the app private from anyone else holding your phone.
And it’s not just private, it’s genuinely lovely to use. Flujo predicts your cycle phases, shows them on a dynamic chart and a full calendar view, and lets you log symptoms and moods with the fewest clicks possible — no required fields, not even for logging entries. There’s a calm section with breathing exercises, multiple color themes, moon phase tracking, and it works in both English and Spanish.
Building a data-heavy app with charts, a calendar, and local storage in just 48 hours was a serious test of what Nowa can do — and Flujo passed with flying colors.
👉 Check out Flujo on r/nowa
To everyone who participated: thank you ❤️
Every single person who submitted an app gets AI credits too:
- $50 in AI credits if you posted your demo on r/nowa
- $25 in AI credits if you uploaded your video through the form
Your credits stay active after the free weekend and kick in whenever you hit your daily AI limits.
Congrats to all the winners — we can’t wait to see your apps go live and grow. And to everyone who built something that weekend: keep going. The best apps start exactly like this.
Start building →
Until the next one,
The Nowa team 💙
