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Surf Mate
Swell, tides, cams and local knowledge in one place, so the decision to paddle out takes one look instead of five apps.
The brief
What it had to do.
The founders described the problem exactly the way their users would: tired of checking a million apps just to see if it is worth paddling out. Swell on one, tides on another, a cam on a third, and the local knowledge that actually decides it sitting in a group chat.
SurfMate collapses that into one screen. The constraint that shaped the build is that a surfer checks it at dawn, one-handed, deciding in under a minute — so the data has to be current, the reading has to be instant, and nothing may ask them to configure anything before it answers the question.
What we built
The parts that make it true.
Conditions, current and forecast
Real-time wave height, period and direction, accurate tide charts for local breaks, and a seven-day forecast for planning further out than tomorrow. One view, no tab switching.
Spots and live cams
Break discovery by location with HD cams from beaches worldwide, so the last check before leaving the house is the water itself rather than a number that describes it.
Reports from people who were there
Daily conditions from local surfers alongside the machine data. The forecast says what the ocean should be doing; a report from the person standing on the sand says what it is doing.
A session log with something to play for
Surf logging with progress tracking, weekly challenges, a local leaderboard and a community layer — the difference between an app that is checked and an app that is used.
What’s live
Shipped, and in use.
- Swell data: wave height, period and direction in real time
- Tide charts for local breaks
- Spots near me, with HD live cams
- Surf reports from local surfers
- Seven-day forecast
- Surf log, weekly challenges, leaderboard and community
The detail
The decisions behind it.
A tool with a personality
Surf apps default to the look of a weather station: grids, greys and decimals. This one is warm, illustrated and unmistakably about surfing, and it still puts the numbers first. Charm is not the opposite of useful — it is what makes somebody open the same app tomorrow.
Built by surfers, said by the product
The story section is one honest paragraph about being tired of checking five apps. It reads as something a person wrote because it is, and it does more for trust than a page of feature copy — the audience can tell instantly whether the people who made the thing have stood on a beach at 5am.
Want one of your own?
Every way we build is priced on one page, with a date attached to each. No call required to see a number.
More work
