Understanding Senses

What are Senses?

Senses are the way your Aura perceives the world around you. Just as humans have sight, hearing, and touch, your Aura has access to digital "senses" that provide context about your life.

By connecting senses like your calendar, location, weather service, or fitness tracker, you give your Aura the information it needs to provide truly personalized, context-aware assistance.

Without senses, an Aura can only respond to what you tell it directly. With senses, it knows you have a meeting in 30 minutes, that it's going to rain this afternoon, and that you didn't sleep well last night - allowing it to proactively help before you even ask.

Available Senses

Aura supports a variety of senses across different categories. Here's what's available:

Calendar

Connect your calendar to let your Aura understand your schedule.

Use cases: Meeting prep reminders, daily schedule summaries, detecting busy vs. free periods, commute timing based on first meeting.

Location

Location awareness enables your Aura to know where you are and trigger rules based on arrivals and departures.

• Saved places: Define important locations like Home, Work, Gym, etc.
• Geofencing: Trigger rules when entering or leaving a defined area
• Current location: Provide relevant local information (weather, nearby context)

Weather

Weather is a built-in sense that doesn't require external account connection. It uses your location (if shared) or a manually set location to provide:

• Current temperature and conditions
• Today's forecast and hourly breakdown
• Rain probability and precipitation alerts
• UV index and air quality information
• Severe weather warnings

Use cases: Morning weather briefings, rain alerts before commute, UV warnings for outdoor activities.

Fitness & Wearables

Connect fitness trackers and wearables to give your Aura insight into your health and activity:

Use cases: Recovery-aware training suggestions, sleep quality check-ins, celebrating fitness milestones, adjusting intensity based on strain.

Music

Connect your music service to let your Aura understand your listening habits:

• Spotify: Currently playing track, recently played, top artists/tracks, playlist context

Use cases: Music recommendations based on time of day, recognizing focus/work sessions, mood-aware suggestions.

Connecting Senses

You can connect senses in two places:

1. During Aura creation: The Senses step in the Aura Builder lets you connect services specific to that Aura
2. In the Library: Navigate to Library → Senses to manage all your connected services in one place

To connect a sense:

1. Click the service you want to connect
2. You'll be redirected to the service's login page
3. Sign in and authorize Aura to access your data
4. You'll be redirected back to Aura with the connection complete

Managing Connections

To view and manage your connected services, go to Library → Senses. Here you can:

• View connection status: See which services are connected and when they last synced
• Refresh connections: Manually trigger a data sync if information seems stale
• Disconnect services: Remove a connection entirely, revoking Aura's access
• Reconnect: If a connection expires or breaks, reconnect by clicking the service

Using Sense Data in Rules

Senses become powerful when combined with rules. You can use sense data as:

• Triggers: "When my sleep score drops below 70" or "When I arrive at the gym"
• Conditions: "Only if it's going to rain" or "Only if I have no meetings in the next hour"
• Context: Sense data is automatically available to your Aura when composing messages

For example, a morning briefing rule might check calendar for the day's meetings, weather for the forecast, and sleep data from your wearable - then compose a message that incorporates all three data sources.

See Building Rules for detailed examples of using sense data in rule conditions.

Privacy & Data Access

Your privacy is our priority. Here's how sense data is handled:

• OAuth-only connections: We never see your passwords. All connections use secure OAuth authorization.
• Minimal access: We only request the permissions needed for Aura to function. We don't ask for write access to your calendar, for example.
• Per-Aura control: You decide which senses each Aura can access. Your fitness coach Aura doesn't need to see your calendar.
• Data isn't stored permanently: Sense data is fetched in real-time when needed, not continuously logged.
• Revoke anytime: You can disconnect services at any time, immediately revoking Aura's access.

Troubleshooting

Having issues with a sense? Here are common solutions:

• Connection shows as expired: OAuth tokens can expire. Click the service to reconnect and re-authorize.
• Data seems outdated: Click "Refresh" on the connection in Library → Senses to manually sync.
• Location not updating: Check your device's location permissions. Aura needs location access to be enabled.
• Wearable data not appearing: Some wearables sync data on a delay. Oura and WHOOP typically update in the morning after processing overnight data.
• Rule isn't using sense data: Make sure the sense is enabled for that specific Aura in its settings.

Next, learn how to connect specific services step-by-step in Connecting Services, or explore Location Awareness for advanced location features.