Occasionally I get to meet entrepreneurs with really wild and far reaching visions. Occasionally I even think they’re not all that nuts either.
This happened a few months ago when I was introduced to three co-founders, Andrey Shirben and brothers, Lior and Liran Akavia. Together, the three want to bring robotics to every household. No biggie.
As a first step they’re trying their luck with connected toys and they’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign for the first line of WisePet connected toys they want to ship.
WisePets are a collection of five plush toys that have smartphones or tablets slipped into the front. That’s it? Is that all there is to it?
Well, yes. You shouldn’t be underwhelmed though because one of the things I’ve learned as a father of two is that often times it’s the most simple toys and activities that kids find to be most fun and educational.
Targeted at toddlers, WisePet apps will come in iOS & Android versions. These will fit into 3 pets designed for smartphones (Sealy, Stripy & Pinky) and two designed for tablets (Splashy & Flora).
I’ve had a chance to play with WisePet prototypes and can easily see them becoming popular with kids and parents alike. They’re just the right of cute and the apps have just the right of interaction built-in to give them a good shot of being a popular connected toy line.
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Important to keep in mind is that this collection is the first generation of the WisePets. There are more planned with a greater degree of sophistication, on both the toy and apps sides. If they can deliver on what I was walked-through, interesting things may happen to this company.
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