🌊 Marea - Sostén & Dignidad (Holding & Dignity)
Marea is an offline-first Progressive Web App (PWA) designed to function 100% without an internet connection. It serves as a sensory anchor, conversational haven, and augmentative communication channel for neurodivergent, disabled (such as stroke survivors with motor hemiplegia and aphasia), and neurotypical individuals in times of sensory overload or crisis.
Created as a gift to the community by Lana Technologies.
🎨 Project Philosophy
- Absolute Privacy: No data collection, no trackers, and no mandatory registration. 100% of user data (perceptive journals, safety anchors) remains securely stored on the local storage of the user's device (
localStorage).
- Zero Friction: Marea operates directly in any modern mobile or tablet web browser. As a PWA, users can "Add to Home Screen" to install it as a standalone app in seconds, with a footprint under 1 MB.
- Uncompromising Accessibility: Built strictly under WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines to ensure blind users, individuals with motor difficulties, unilateral paralysis (hemiplegia), or severe sensory hypersensitivity can navigate the app with complete autonomy.
🛠️ Key Features
💬 1. The Haven (Conversational Validation)
An active-listening chat module that practices radical validation. It avoids toxic positivity and unsolicited advice. It features a continuous presence system: if the user stops typing, the app remains open, softly pulsing a bioluminescent light accompanied by the message: “I'm still here. No need to speak if you do not want to.”
⚓ 2. The Anchor (Sensory Regulators)
- Box Breathing (4-4-4-4): An interactive bioluminescent ring guiding inhalation, retention, and exhalation, synchronized with real-time procedural ocean wave sounds (synthesised offline via Web Audio API).
- Sensory Grounding (5-4-3-2-1): A step-by-step wizard to help users reconnect with their immediate surroundings (sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste) to break cognitive rumiation loops ("what ifs").
- TIPP Reset (Cold Water): A mechanical 5-minute timer guiding the user to submerge their face/eyes in cold water to stimulate the vagus nerve and physically lower their heart rate during panic.
🗣️ 3. Marea Voice (AAC - Augmentative and Alternative Communication)
Specifically designed for stroke (ictus) survivors with speech difficulties (aphasia/dysarthria) and unilateral motor limitations:
- One board, one fixed order: 24 large cards, most urgent first — yes / no, help, pain, feeling unwell, toilet, water, food, rest — then conversation repair (“My brain works perfectly, but I struggle to speak. Please have patience with me”, wait, slower, I don't understand), comfort, feelings and closeness. No categories to navigate and positions never change, so the hand learns where things are (motor planning). Wording is short, literal and gender-neutral; no metaphors. Tapping a card reads it aloud with the device's own text-to-speech.
- Write it instead (the text pad above the board is shared by all inputs; Say speaks it):
- Keyboard — by default opens the device's own keyboard (already in the person's language, with accents, corrector, dictation). Marea's large keyboard is an opt-in alternative (Settings → Typing keyboard): in the person's language (ñ and accents included; AZERTY for French, QWERTZ for German), alphabetical ABC layout as an alternative, automatic capitals, and word suggestions that learn the words you really use (stored only on this device).
- Write (handwriting) — write one capital letter at a time with finger, pencil or mouse. Recognition is local (a $P point-cloud matcher with built-in stroke templates, no model and no network); it shows the 3 best guesses, and learns from your corrections. A palm-rejection mode ignores the hand when a pen is used, and the pause before a letter is accepted is adjustable in Settings. Chinese and Japanese use the device's own keyboard/IME.
- Scan — row/column switch scanning for people who can use a single switch or tap, including Face Control.
- Voice: speaks with the best voice actually installed on the device (natural/enhanced first), never a surprise. The person or a carer can pick another voice and the speed in Settings → Voice. Voices that stream text to a server (some Edge/Chrome "online" voices) are never used: nothing the person says or writes leaves the device.
- Your own pace: in Settings the person (or a carer) can set how long Marea ignores an accidental second tap (or switch it off), how fast the scanning keyboard and Face Control move, and the handwriting pause. Defaults are the previous fixed values.
- Hand side: Right hand puts the most urgent cards on the right edge (thumb side), Left hand on the left; Motor makes every button bigger. The Aphasia profile selects big buttons but never assumes which hand works.
👁️ 3b. Face Control & Facial Neurofeedback (KAI Perception)
Powered by the same on-device perception engine as CIL/KAI (MediaPipe FaceLandmarker, 478 landmarks + blendshapes), bundled locally — no CDN, no cloud, frames never leave the device:
- Face Control (Hands-Free): an auto-scanning focus walks through every interactive element of the app; the user selects with a configurable facial gesture (long blink, open mouth, or raised brows). Includes the scan keyboard, so a user with no motor control of their hands can navigate and speak using only their face.
- Facial Neurofeedback ("Calma Facial"): the face replaces electrodes. Brow-knit, eye-squint and jaw tension — calibrated against the user's own resting face — drive a live bioluminescent ring that grows as the user physically lets go. Sessions are logged locally.
- Offline model: the ~15 MB face model is stored the first time Face Control runs, or ahead of time from Settings → Face Control offline.
Face perception is built on Google MediaPipe FaceLandmarker (Apache 2.0), bundled locally and running entirely on-device. Note: on iPhone, camera access works in Safari; iOS still limits camera permissions for installed home-screen web apps — an Apple platform restriction, not a Marea choice.
📝 4. Safety Anchors
A personalized crisis plan based on the Stanley-Brown safety model. Users can register their safe person, stabilizing song, and peaceful memory during calm periods, allowing quick retrieval when "the water rises".
🎨 5. Perceptive Journal
Log sensory inputs (sensitivity to light, sound, anxiety, physical pain, and rumination). Rather than writing a text log, Marea processes these sliders to draw a dynamic abstract canvas, visualising your sensory footprint as a unique piece of digital art.
⚙️ Codebase Structure
Marea is built using minimal, lightweight technologies for maximum portability and speed:
index.html - Semantic layout with full ARIA accessibility roles.styles.css - Custom styling with dynamic themes (Deep Sea, Warm Sand, High Contrast, Monochrome) and unilateral layouts.app.js - Client-side state machine, navigation, local storage hooks, and SpeechSynthesis player.sound.js - Real-time Web Audio API procedural wave synth.i18n.js - Integrated dictionaries for dynamic Spanish and English translation.manifest.json & service-worker.js - PWA assets.
🔒 Legal Disclaimer
Marea is a low-intensity sensory holding space. It is not a medical device and does not replace professional therapy, clinical treatment, or emergency services. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please contact your local emergency services (e.g. 112/999 in the UK/Europe, 988 in the US/Canada, 024 in Spain).
📄 License & Integrity Protection
Copyright (C) 2024–2026 Lana Technologies · Humberto Gil Valera
Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0-only).
The AGPL-3.0 means:
- Anyone can read, audit, and verify the source code — transparency is non-negotiable.
- Any modified version distributed publicly or run as a network service must publish its full source code under the same license.
- You cannot take Marea proprietary. If you build on it, you build in the open.
Additionally, any use or fork must honour the Philosophy Covenant (see LICENSE):
- Absolute Privacy — no user data may leave the device, ever.
- No monetisation of vulnerability — no paywalls on core features for people in crisis.
- Accessibility first — WCAG 2.1 AA is the floor, not the ceiling.
- Open source forever — modifications must remain open.
Official releases are published exclusively by Lana Technologies at marea.lanatech.tech.
Unofficial forks that remove privacy protections, add trackers, or misrepresent the official app violate both the license and the covenant.
