penates
Augmented reality lararium
Free
Seven niches, placed once in augmented reality, holding only what you scanned or photographed yourself. Placing an eighth object means taking one out first.
Penates is a household shrine for the few things you actually keep.
Seven niches, settled once and for all. You place the cabinet where you want it, in augmented reality, against a wall or on a corner of a desk, and you fill it with objects you scanned or photographed yourself. There is no catalogue to choose from, and no way to add an eighth niche. When all seven are taken, placing something new means taking something out.
That constraint is the whole design. A shelf that holds everything selects nothing.
HOW IT WORKS
Scan an object in three dimensions with guided capture. Everything is computed on the device, and the photographs are erased once the model is made.
Or import a USDZ file you already have. It is brought down to the size of a niche automatically, however large it was.
Or mount a photograph on a panel, for what a 3D scan cannot see: glass, chrome, matte black, anything small without texture.
Then name it, add a label of at most 140 characters, choose its niche, and hold to confirm. Placing something is not a tap.
To visit, walk to where you left the cabinet and raise your phone. The doors open as you come near.
A Lock Screen widget shows one object a day, drawn from those in the niche. That is the everyday way of seeing them. Opening the app is the rare one.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
No account and no sign-up. No feed, no sharing, no one else's shrine to look at. No notification asking you to come back. No analytics of any kind, and no advertising. The app never opens by itself.
TAKING SOMETHING OUT IS REAL
Removing an object empties its niche at once. It stays recoverable for thirty days from Settings, and then the model is deleted from this device and from iCloud, for good. Putting it back would mean scanning the object again, and therefore still having it.
YOUR THINGS STAY YOURS
Everything lives in your own iCloud account, synchronised between your own devices and shared with no one. This app has no server.
WHERE THE FORM COMES FROM
The Roman lararium, the Chinese earth-god shrine, the Japanese kamidana and butsudan, the Orthodox icon corner. People keep arriving at the same solution independently: a very small bounded space, marked off from the room, holding a handful of things. And in the oldest of them, the contents were never purely religious — a god stood beside a child's keepsake.
Penates takes that form and nothing else. It is not a religious object and does not claim to be one.
BEFORE YOU INSTALL
Scanning an object in 3D requires an iPhone Pro with LiDAR. On any other iPhone you can still place the cabinet and visit it in augmented reality, import USDZ files, mount photographs, and use the widget — but you cannot scan a new object with the camera. This is stated here so that it is not discovered afterwards.
While all seven niches are empty, the app offers to place a single demonstration object, so that an empty shrine is not the first thing you have to imagine. Take it out whenever you have something of your own.
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The developer, 1O1IN, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- luc brunet
- Size
- 6.5 MB
- Category
- Lifestyle
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 26.4 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 26.4 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 26.4 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 l0d0v1c