Essential Lab Season 1 | Student Contest

Rohit · 2026-02-11T09:59:51+00:00

Hey Community, Most software is built for everyone. Essential is built around you. It’s the layer within Nothing OS where your phone learns what you need, remembers what matters and creates tools that fit how you actually live. We’re early. The only way to build this properly is to learn from how real people use it. That’s why we created Essential Lab. Essential Lab is where we invite people to experiment, build and turn everyday needs into useful tools. What comes out of it directly shapes how Essential evolves, from the apps you build to how Space, Search and Memory work together. Your ideas don’t just stay yours. They accelerate personal software for everyone. The Contest For Season 1, we’re starting by inviting students from around the world to explore what personal software looks like. You’ll have 24 hours to build one Essential App, a small personal app designed to help with a specific moment, task or decision in your day. Describe what you want it to do, and our AI-powered Apps Builder helps bring it to life. You can also explore Essential Apps created by the Nothing Community on Playground, from simple everyday tools to more experimental ideas. You don’t need a Nothing phone to participate. The contest runs entirely through a contest environment in the Essential Apps Builder, so any participant can build and submit. Simple ideas are encouraged. Think a task you repeat often, a daily problem you deal with or a small tool you wish already existed. To help inspire what you build, here’s what your app can tap into during the contest: Calendar Contacts Location Weather Camera Microphone Gallery Motion sensors Health Connect Daily steps Usage statistics System notifications Internet data Vibration Sounds and toast notifications. Once the contest window closes, the Essential team reviews every submission. We’re looking at clarity, usefulness, thoughtfulness and execution. Simple and focused usually stands out. For the best experience, and to publish smoothly during the contest window, please open the contest environment link and use the Apps Builder on a laptop/desktop. What happens after. This contest is just the start of Season 1. We’ll keep expanding Beta access from the waitlist, testing new Essential experiences and learning from how people actually use this stuff. Shortlisted participants and winners get invited into the Essential Network, a smaller group we work with more closely through early access, feedback sessions and ongoing collaboration as Essential evolves. Register your interest and read the full contest details here: 👉 Contest Page Link 👉Playground Link

Dani 💫

cool

Kkumar_bhagat

Exited !

Anonymous1235

Ali Fakhruddin

Good luck to all participants. The team has really worked hard on it and cooked well. Using it again after months felt a huge difference in fixes, bugs, etc. So it’s a win-win and a potential future in app development.

abstractethic

unlock your creativity guyss

Guidomelvin

Signed up! This is exciting! 🔥🔥

Anonymous1235

PREET AJMERI Yes, I would like to know this as well, as does this apply to just University/College students, or all students who can access the Essential App builder and of age to be mature enough, such as those in the last years of High School?

PREET AJMERI

Anonymous1235 No more overthinking, I signed up! New ideas are flowing already, and I honestly can’t wait to get started.

sean 1

T&Cs:

“Participants must be at least eighteen (18) years of age at the time of entry and must be enrolled as a student at an accredited educational institution. Participants must reside in an eligible region. Due to legal restrictions, entries are not accepted from Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba, the Crimea region, or any other countries or regions subject to applicable export controls or sanctions at the time of the contest.”

Disappointing to find I’m excluded from partaking because I’m no longer a student. You see, older folk quickly forget everything about student living after leaving university. Going senile…

ZahaRahman

Signed up!! Excited to explore the essential lab ⭐

AbdulSa_77#

ZahaRahman Unfortunately, I couldn’t register! I think it’s too late. But I’m eagerly looking forward to what’s new.

Nice to meet you.

Abdul

Rohit

Clock’s ticking ⏰ Just a few more hours left to register - https://playground.nothing.tech/lab

WylanMan

Rohit I submitted 1.59pm but the submission on typeform wasn’t taken in. Any chance you could take one more submission?

AdhishBharadwaj

Dayumm just saw this, sad that the registration closed. Will bookmark this for next season for sure.

(Unless I can get in some how 👀, any mods that can help )

dhruvvvgg

the unstop website still shows registrations open for another 15hours but the redirect page says registration closed. Any chance the deadline gonna be extended a bit??

NAMANJHA_wZvZKFO3dl

i haven’t got lab link as now the time is 3:30 more than 1.30 hr and still no mail as i selected for the 24 hour hackathon ?

PREET AJMERI

NAMANJHA_wZvZKFO3dl The timing is 14:00 GMT, which corresponds to +5:30 hours in IST, so it’s 7:30 PM in India

StanShih

When will the chosen participants be announced?