Snoring solution leads ABI awards success

For some couples, snoring is more than a nightly annoyance. It can mean disrupted sleep, strained relationships and, when it’s really bad, separate bedrooms.

For Andreia Valente, it was a problem she first witnessed at home, watching her father's snoring take a toll on her mother's sleep and health. Years later, she's seeing the same issue play out among friends, with some relationships strained to the point of break-up.

Now the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) PhD student is trying to find a solution. Her startup, Tango, involves a wearable technology designed to help couples sleep better together. The system uses two connected nose pads, one worn by each partner. When the non-snorer’s device detects disruptive snoring, it prompts a gentle vibration in the snorer's pad, encouraging them to roll over before anyone’s sleep is interrupted.

Tango just took second place in the 2026 Velocity $100K Challenge, the University of Auckland's flagship entrepreneurship competition run by the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It was part of a standout night for ABI, which claimed two of the competition's three major prizes.

The competition's top prize went to Liam Smith's venture, Scentsation, which explores how targeted scents can influence shopper behaviour in retail environments. 

The bronze award also went to Auckland Bioengineering Institute researchers. Start-up company Automated Breast MRI Reporting is developing digital twin-enhanced software which helps radiologists read breast cancer scans faster.

The double success at Velocity is recognition of a culture within the Auckland Bioengineering Institute which promotes the translation of research to real-world impact, says ABI director Professor Merryn Tawhai.

It’s a culture increasingly spreading at Waipapa Taumata Rau.

ABI has been an important part of the University's innovation activity for many years, Tawhai says.

“A few days ago a new Australasian survey confirmed that the University of Auckland is top-ranked in New Zealand and equal third in Australasia for creating new start-ups and spinouts.

"That’s out of 72 universities, medical research institutes, and public research organisations," she says.

'Saving my friends’ relationships'

Valente says snoring affects millions of households, but the problem is mostly viewed through the lens of the snorer - not the couple.

A well-known phenomenon, ‘sleep divorce’ – where couples sleep in separate bedrooms – is most commonly caused by snoring, Valente says. And there’s a big health impact for people when snoring causes broken sleep.

“Good sleep is the first domino in a line of health risks. It affects absolutely everything.”

As well as triggering a ‘roll-over’ response for the snorer, the Tango nose pad sensor technology can also learn when snoring occurs, including identifying the sleep phase and sleeping position, Valente says. This allows it to tailor the response to each couple.

“It is all about optimising two colliding sleep patterns.”

The Tango team includes Valter Santos and Alireza Nia from ABI, with advice from Nickola Overall from the Faculty of Science and Dr Nicola Ludin from the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

Valente says participating in Velocity challenged her to think beyond the laboratory.

“The process pulled me out of the comfort of science, where we build all this cool stuff that could actually help people but probably never reaches them. It made me think hard about how our work can get to the people who need it.”

The $20,000 prize money and support from the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's incubator programme Venture Lab will help the team continue refining the technology and exploring pathways to market.

“The prize money will let us keep iterating on the prototype as we work out how to make this nosepad wearable, cheap, accurate, and not too ugly to look at.

“I want Tango to be the thing couples reach for before they reach for the spare room.”

Better breast cancer screening

Third-place winner Automated Breast MRI Reporting aims to help women at high risk of breast cancer receive scan results sooner.

Developed by a multidisciplinary team from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, the software helps radiologists analyse breast MRI scans more efficiently.

“Our software will draft the report, with each finding measured on a digital twin of each woman's breast and compared with last year's scan,” says ABI senior research fellow Dr Thiranja Prasad Babarenda Gamage.

The team includes Associate Professor Anthony Doyle, Professors Martyn Nash, Poul Nielsen, and Gonzalo Maso Talou, and Drs Ralph Highnam and Tim Wu.