Concept visual · not the final design
Introducing Sixth Lab
Not all overwhelm is the same.
We're building everyday glasses and a sensing ring that notice when something is building, ask you what's going on, and offer small steps that fit you. Designed with late-diagnosed ADHD and autistic adults.
Now: working prototype · TRL 4For late-diagnosed adults who want to take part, and for clinicians, investors and partners.
See it in 60 seconds
The prototype, in action.
Prototype on off-the-shelf hardware · TRL 4 · not the final design.
The starting point
Meltdown, shutdown, and burnout are not the same thing.
They feel different. They build differently. They need different responses. No wearable we know of is designed around that.
The problem
The system is overwhelmed. The people in it are, too.
Late-diagnosed adults are waiting years for support that, when it arrives, rarely reaches into the parts of daily life where things actually break.
294,000+
open referrals for suspected autism in England (June 2026).
735,000+
people estimated to be waiting for an NHS ADHD assessment in England (Feb 2026).
2.5 million
people in England estimated to have ADHD, diagnosed or not (NHS England, 2025).
Sources: NHS England, Autism Waiting Time Statistics (June 2026); NHS England, ADHD Management Information (Feb 2026); NHS England ADHD Taskforce (2025).
What we learned
We listened first. The same patterns kept surfacing.
From Prolific a 50-person survey of neurodivergent adults in England, JUNE 2026, the same needs came up again and again.
Stress scores add stress.People switch off alerts that judge them or nag them.
The warning signs come early.Avoiding messages, losing routines and getting irritable often come before burnout.
Medication confuses trackers.Stimulants raise heart rate, so generic devices read them as stress.
Effort is the enemy.If it needs remembering, charging every day or constant attention, it gets abandoned.
Paraphrased and anonymised. Sources: Prolific.
The insight
Your body shows that something is building. Only you know why.
Our analysis of public research data found that body signals reliably show when you're under load, but can't reliably tell one kind of pressure from another. So Sixth Lab doesn't guess. It combines your body's signals, your surroundings and your own quick answer, and learns your patterns over time. That's the space we're building for.
Why glasses and a ring
Built where your body meets your surroundings.
Your body, without a screen.
A sensing ring is designed to read heart-rate patterns, breathing and movement all day, with nothing to remember.
Context a wristband can't see.
The glasses sense the sound around you, so a racing heart in a loud room reads differently from one in a quiet one.
Reflection first. Prompts only if you want them.
A quiet cue in the corner of your lens, one question, and small steps you choose. No scores. No one telling you who you are.
How it works
Notice. Check in. Act.
Something is building.
Your devices are designed to compare your signals with your own baseline, not a population average, and with what's happening around you.
One gentle question.
'What's going on?' Focused, too loud, stressed, tired, or not sure. Only you know why, so we ask.
Small steps that fit you.
Step somewhere quieter, take a short break, breathe, or carry on. It learns what helps you, and stays quiet when you're fine.
We do not diagnose, treat or predict outcomes.
Where the evidence stands
Early, honest, and grounded in the people we're building for.
We're at the prototype stage. What we have is a clear problem, real people behind it, and early technical work that says the direction is worth walking.
Listening first.
PROLIFIC, plus published research and community insights on what neurodivergent adults need from wearables.
Twelve rounds of rigorous analysis
on six public research datasets, each plan fixed before seeing results, to learn what body signals can and can't tell.
A working prototype (TRL 4).
Off-the-shelf smart glasses, a chest-strap heart sensor and our iPhone app, integrated and working together in the lab.
A research study in development
with a UK university, to collect the data no public dataset has.
The device
Something you'd wear anyway. Doing quiet, careful work.
Sixth Lab is designed to look and feel like everyday glasses. It doesn't ask for attention, and it doesn't try to be a phone on your face.
Under the surface, it's a research platform for reading the body's signals in the context of ADHD and autistic experience, built to earn trust before it earns a place in daily life.
- Form
- Everyday eyewear + sensing ring
- Signals
- Heart-rate patterns · breathing · movement · sound around you · skin conductance (next phase)
- Processing
- Designed for on-device processing. No audio is recorded or stored.
- Data
- Yours, exportable and deletable
- Status
- Working prototype (TRL 4) · research device in development
The science we're standing on
Interoception, autonomic patterns, and lived experience.
Our work draws on research into interoception (how we sense our own body), stress and recovery, and on the challenge-and-threat model: the same racing heart can mean 'I can handle this' or 'this is too much'. We treat that literature as a starting point, not a finish line.
Sixth Lab is not a medical device. We do not diagnose meltdown, shutdown, or burnout, and we do not claim to prevent them. What we're working towards is making the physiological texture of daily life legible, with the people it affects most in the room.
Privacy
Your body. Your data. Your call.
Sensing and analysis are designed to run on your phone. No audio is recorded or stored; only the sound level is used.
Your data will be yours: encrypted, exportable and deletable by you at any time.
We don't sell, rent, or share your data with advertisers or data brokers. Not now. Not later.
Where we are
Prototype stage, on purpose.
We're not shipping a device yet. We're doing the careful work first: listening, testing honestly, then building.
- User research
- Analysis of public research data
- NowWorking prototype (TRL 4)
- Pilot with real users
- A purpose-built device
TRL = Technology Readiness Level, the standard scale used by UK research funders.
A note from the founder
Sixth Lab exists because meltdown, shutdown, and burnout arrived in my own life before I had names for any of them.
I want the thing I needed at 25: a quiet mirror that could tell me my body was moving, and roughly in which direction, before it took me somewhere I couldn't come back from that week.
We are building slowly, in the open, with the people this is for.
Get in touch
Help shape what we build.
If you're a late-diagnosed adult, a clinician, a researcher, an investor, or a partner who wants to help this exist — tell us who you are and what you're hoping to find here.