iOteddy® connects loved ones separated by distance.

iOteddy's patent pending technology opens up a child’s world by enabling them to easily and safely communicate with their loved ones around the world in a secure way that is special to them.

You can Share a Cuddle, Send a Kiss, Whisper a Secret or just send a short message to let them know that you are thinking of them.

iOteddy Mobile Application

Meet iOteddy!

How iOteddy works

Bear-to-Phone

iOteddy allows for communication to be sent from a smartphone (Android & iPhone). A message is sent from a child communicating to a family member eg parent.

Bear-to-Phone allows for a child to contact their parent when they want to, in a way that is natural to them.

Pressing integrated buttons inside of iOteddy sends messages to the parent the iOteddy represents.

Additionally, the child has the ability to record short 10 second clips to send to the parent in the form of a “secret”.

Phone-to-Bear

iOteddy can receive the same messages using Phone-to-Bear which allows for a parent to reach a child from their smartphone using pre-configured buttons that plays a specified message to the child.

Additionally, iOteddy can play back music and a 10 second recorded voice clips from the parent.

Send or Receive a Cuddle

Bear-to-Bear

The Bear-to-Bear communication is earmarked as a future software release and is designed for parents and children who do not wish to and/or the parent is unable to use a mobile phone. In this use case, there is no mobile phone required except during setup. An example of this would be a grandparent to a child.

Bear to Bear Communication to send a cuddle

All methods of communication are available on both Bear to Bear and Bear to Phone.

It's an iOteddy Bear Family

We want to provide an experience that is safe and secure but at the same time create the most exciting and comforting interaction possible.

iOteddy is designed to personify an important person in a child's life.

A child can collect a number of iOteddy bears that they can use to connect and interact with each of their loved ones in their family: Mom, Dad or Grandparent, Aunty, Uncle (initial release) or even a Brother, Sister, Sponsor or Family Friend (coming soon).

Accessories - the Bear Essentials

As iOteddy represents members of a child's family, additional accessories will be available for purchase from January 2017.

For example glasses and clothing are great ways to make the bear resemble the family member being personified.

Accessorise your iOteddy

Voice and Messaging System

Today iOteddy comes standard with 6 different voice pre-sets: Mummy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunty and Uncle. Other optional voice packs to cater for extended family members are coming soon.

We are also working on messages in different accents and languages that will be available for purchase within the iOteddy mobile application.

Additionally, the method of delivery for messages can be changed from the default "Your kiss will be sent over a rainbow" to anything you like.

Support for any language!

We were keen to enable you to customized messages so we leveraged the capabilities of VoiceBunny. We have integrated with their API system so we can customise your own custom messages with any one of their talented voice actors.

We understand a boy might not want to send a kiss over a rainbow - so why not customise your message to send a High-five using mental telepathy, the force or one of his special magical powers?

Customise voices with Voice Bunny integration!

Fun and Safe

Security is our #1 priority for iOteddy.

While children today use smart and other connected devices we took a four prong approach to security:

We made a conscious decision to remove hardware such as the camera to ensure iOteddy was locked down for protection from the ground up.

2 factor authentication – a bear can only be paired to a single device such as another bear or a single phone.

A digital cypher is generated when paring the device, similar to bank level 2 factor authentication.

A digital cypher is generated when paring the device, similar to bank level 2 factor authentication. End point encryption - Industry standard TLS/SSL encryption is used for network endpoints.

256 bit encryption - Use powerful AES encryption for data streaming through our network.

By leveraging PubNub cloud messaging service we can safely and securely send or receive message anywhere in the world in under 250ms (1/4 a second) and should you decide to back this project you can rest assured that this hyper-scale platform will be online 99.999% of the time.

Our technical teams love the idea of 5x9's availability on a plush toy!

Pubnub' enterprise grade messaging platform is super safe!

Meet the iOteddy Team

iOteddy Core Team

Inspiration

iOteddy is designed to bridge the physical and emotional gap between parents and their children. We have built a safe, secure and cost effective solution to help children and their extended family communicate in a way that is natural to a child.

iOteddy was born out of the bond between Co-Founder Alex and his 5 year old step-daughter and his acknowledgement of the importance of maintaining a relationship with her father who is in the Navy. Her Dad is required to spend a lot of time away from home and she misses him and, of course, he misses her. One night, Alex explained his iOteddy idea to his step-daughter over dinner, "What if I could build you a teddy bear that when you gave it a cuddle it would send a magical message to your daddy and he could send one back to you?" She got down from her chair walked over to him, cuddled him tighter than ever and whispered in his ear, "That sounds perfect!" Returning to her spot at the table she smiled at him and said, "I'll help you make it Alex". It was at that moment that Alex understood how important this could be for her, her father and their extended family plus other similar families around the world.

However, after thinking more about friends who travel or are absent due to work commitments, he quickly realized that this challenge of "disconnection" wasn't just with parents who were separated, it included anyone who is apart from their loved one. It would benefit Military families, parents who are on the road, shift workers, business travellers - anyone whose jobs require them to spend precious time away from home. Also Grandparents whose circumstances mean they struggle to see or spend time with their Grandchildren. All of these people would benefit from this magical bear!

This is why we are launching on Kickstarter, to offer this solution to anyone who has a child that misses someone they love.

Our Fund

Our target is to raise AUD$200,000 (Est USD$150,000).

Production: With these funds we will place orders to our factories to start production of the hardware component.

Our aim is to order the first 100 units as soon as that pledge is full to ensure delivery by Christmas.

With these funds we will place orders to our factories to start production of the hardware component. Our aim is to order the first 100 units as soon as that pledge is full to ensure delivery by Christmas. User Interface & Online Web Front

-We will be updating the application front end to finalise the user interface of the application.

-Finalise our eCommerce website and in-app "Build my iOteddy" so you can create a bear just like you from the mobile app and send it to all of your loved ones.

-Additionally, based on feedback, we want to create a portal to manage multiple iOteddies for a single family.

-We will be updating the application front end to finalise the user interface of the application. -Finalise our eCommerce website and in-app "Build my iOteddy" so you can create a bear just like you from the mobile app and send it to all of your loved ones. -Additionally, based on feedback, we want to create a portal to manage multiple iOteddies for a single family. Support:

We have a full support strategy and we need to hire a support team to help you with any technical difficulties you may experience with your new iOteddy.

We have a full support strategy and we need to hire a support team to help you with any technical difficulties you may experience with your new iOteddy. Security:While our solution is using the latest and greatest security we wish to triple check our work so we will be hiring third party penetration testing to ensure this device meets our own high-security standards.

iOteddy Project Milestones

iOteddy Deep Dive and Kickstarter Plan

Future and Stretch Goals

If we are able to meet our financial goal, we will be able to create an amazing communication device.

And this is just the beginning ................

We want to continue to deliver software upgrades to unlock new and exciting features including introducing education functionality and additional colour ranges to iOteddy.

We also plan to integrate with both e-Books and illustrated stories so iOteddy can read along in a very special and unique way...

We have started to engage with different charities on how we can put iOteddy Bears by the Beds of sick children once our backers have received their iOteddy bears.

iOteddy Partners & Friends

iOteddy Partners and Suppliers

Special Thanks

Firstly, to you. If you've read to this point we really appreciate your interest and we hope you like this exciting venture.

To our early seed supporters, who ranged from a former high school computer science teacher to successful and experienced business people and investors.

To our friends and families, thank you for listening about a teddy bear for the last 9 months. A project like this is very exciting and has consumed us in order to bring you the highest quality toy for your loved one!

Special thanks to a 5-year-old, who inspired this idea - her blunt and honest 5-year-old feedback has been critical.

Her latest support - "It's okay, I'll buy at least two!"

Thank you all for believing in our vision that started 9 months ago.