Social Toys
Toys that talk to the internet. 2013.
It began with my daughter’s sketches: a toy dog that guards her gaming console, barks when another child picks it up, and sends her an alert on the phone.
Children had stopped playing with physical toys, because toys had not kept pace with technology. So in 2013 we founded Minio Technologies in Mumbai and built Social Toys: toys connected to the internet and to each other, on a social network of their own.
Co-inventors: Sandip Maiti, Amit Deshpande
How it worked
A chip in the toy
A small chip inside the toy, worked by buttons or by voice, connects it to the internet over Wi-Fi.
A social network for toys
Each toy has its own profile on the Social Toys Network, an online playground that connects toys with each other, with their owners, and with family and friends who want to play.
Not a robot
The toy is not pre-programmed. Its messages come live from the internet and from the people around the child, so it keeps learning new things to say.
Any toy can join
We built our own toys, but the technology can go inside any toy, made by any company.
Mint · Interview
Now you can communicate with toys
Mint profiled Social Toys among India’s first Internet of Things companies in December 2014, and talked to me about toys that connect children with their family and friends.
Read the Mint article ↗NEO, the first one
NEO was the first Social Toy: an orange storytelling monster that promised unlimited bedtime stories, and connected children with their family and a community of storytellers around the world.
Parents and grandparents could record a story in their own voice on the app and send it to NEO, or pick one from storytellers in the community. The child just listened to NEO: no screen needed.
NEO launched for pre-order on Indiegogo from Mumbai in August 2017, as “the first social storytelling toy”.
Building now · Project Solitude
Coming back in a new avatar
Social Toys is likely to return by the end of 2026. Allmaiti is at work on it, in Project Solitude, my house of innovations.
See what we are building