Ember case study
The sauna app that keeps score
AllTrails meets Strava, built for the sauna.
A sauna guide and session tracker for iPhone and Apple Watch, with SaunaDiscovery.com as its guide on the web. I designed and built all of it on my own.
Get the app →Nobody had built sauna discovery yet
- Wine
- Vivino
- Trails
- AllTrails
- Saunas
- Nobody yet
Sauna culture was having a moment, but the digital side hadn’t caught up. Where should I go in this city? What’s worth seeking out in Helsinki? No app could tell you.
Know the heat before you go
Each venue puts what shapes a visit up front: the type of heat, the cold water, the price, the opening hours and how to book, with why it’s worth the trip.
Recording a session is the check-in
People travel for a great sauna now and then, but they go every week. Because Ember already knows the venues, recording a session at one counts as the visit, with its stamp and your streak. The watch times every heat, cold and rest round.
Every session kept, round by round
Each round is kept with its time and heart rate, and the session saves to Apple Health as a workout. Add notes, a photo and the temperature, or turn it into a card on the venue’s own photo to share.
The same atlas, on the open web
With no ads behind it, Ember had to be found through search. So every venue also has a page on SaunaDiscovery.com, and each one can open the same sauna in the app.
Visit SaunaDiscovery.com →
Found by people searching for saunas
average Google position, from June to September 2026
In August, it took a month to reach 1,000 visitors. In October, it took a week.
The numbers so far
For “sauna guide” in five App Store storefronts
Saunas in 21 countries, curated by hand
Visitors to the web guide in October
Person across design, product and the code
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