Smarter Toys

What if toys could educate, interact and communicate directly with children?

This question has been driving our Labs team for the past few months. We started exploring how kids learn and what forms of entertainment kids use — and noticed there were no innovative, inexpensive and truly scalable solutions that could build on top of the ecosystem. We decided to change that.

Phase One

Our goal became clear, enable a new way of learning for kids by enhancing their current behaviors and experiences.

We knew right away that whatever we moved forward with had to act as an extension — to keep the possibilities and applications as truly open and scalable as possible. iBeacon technology was the perfect fit.

We needed to be able to move quickly and efficiently on both the Phone and Watch for this initial prototype, +1 for Android.

After experimenting, we landed on Estimote Beacons — connecting them via bluetooth to Android phones and Android wear. Utilizing these platforms — in addition to gamification and education — we can monitor proximity, heart rate, health and activity statistics, authorization and other attributes we thought would be useful to children when playing.

Testing

After weeks of fine tuning the prototype, it was time to get some feedback on the current state. We ran a user test with a super cute 5 year old named Birdie - check out the short video below:

A week later, along with showcasing some experiments in progress — we let hundreds of kids test the prototype at the TedX Youth Austin xLabs event - another short video below:

Technology

From our tests and technical tinkering — we discovered a new world of possibilities. A few key findings can be found below, including iBeacon vs Eddystone and Beacons + Android Wear. For a complete list, we compiled all our findings into a Technical Summary (linked here and below).