Toys to Life has proven to be something to follow in the games industry. Join representatives from Spin Master, Anki, LeapFrog and Seebo at a Casual Connect USA panel as they discussed product inception, success stories, mechanics and where Toys to Life is going. To those already in the Toys to Life business, Orit Wohl, Business Developent Manager of Seebo, advised “You should use your analytics to continue improving your [Toys to Life] product even after you release it.”
Orit Wohl is the Business Development Manager at Seebo. As such, she has been in charge of U.S. business development activities at the company. This has meant building relationships with product companies and connecting them with Seebo’s platform to realize the merger of physical and digital products.
“I have also been taking part in building Seebo’s ecosystem with the right partners, including app developers, as many of our customers do not have in-house app development capabilities and they ask for recommendations,” she said, adding, “Before Seebo I worked with Lior Akavia and Liran Akavia, Seebo’s founders, at Playfect. When they offered me to join the business development team at Seebo, I immediately accepted, because I strongly believed in the concept, but also because I love working with Lior and Liran.”
Her time at Playfect taught them about product development and manufacturing. She also became familiar with the issues that manufacturers face every day. Orit uses this experience in communicating with manufacturers and empowering her own teams to create quality physical products that have digital applications.
The Internet of Things Everywhere
Seebo, as Orit has detailed, is focused on uniting physical products and digital applications. Sometimes called the “Internet of Things” and referred to by others as smart products, what’s true about all of these items is that they’re increasingly networked together and becoming much more common. Seebo’s main goal is to help companies bring smart products to market more easily.
“Seebo provides product companies with the technology and tools that make the planning, development and launch of smart products easy, safe and cost effective,” Orit detailed. “These tools include virtualized smart ideation and planning tools, quick prototyping, smart app SDKs and simulator, IoT firmware and hardware development tools, as well as connection with IoT experts to ensure the success of the smart product development process.”
Products for children that have smart functions are particularly appealing. Children are more savvy than ever when it comes to computer technology, so reaching them in new ways has huge potential. Orit sees this breathing new life into the toys-to-life category.
“A small computer chip, with an architecture of a computer - processor, memory, input, output - costs less than $1 today, and the cost is getting lower over time. We are seeing the costs of sensors and connectivity solutions getting cheaper as well, and this trend makes it more affordable to create smart toys and smart products in general. As a result, many more toy manufacturers will decide to develop smart toys,” she noted. “On top of that, children today are used to high levels of interactivity - they are using smartphones from a very young age. These kids expect more from their toys. What we are seeing now is only the beginning.”
The incorporation of the “internet of things” into physical products is one of the largest things to hit some product areas for decades. Because of this, it can be intimidating to some established companies. “I think that the main challenge is convincing traditional companies that they need to start incorporating the internet of things into their product development. Some of these companies have been developing the same products for 100 years; some of them have never dealt with electronics or app development, and it’s a little intimidating for them,” noted Orit. “Having a great product definitely helps overcome these challenges, because these companies understand how much easier it could be using the right partner.”
What to Consider when Making a Smart Product
Going forward, Orit sees many more products getting on board with the “Internet of Things”. This will range from chairs, luggage and baby products to vending machines and mattresses. Just like how users spend plenty of time connected to the internet personally, their products will be so as well soon enough.
“I think more and more app developers are going to turn to develop apps for Internet of Things products,” said Orit. “For app developers, this is a new platform - while it’s hard to make money in developing a new app for a new social game, creating apps for IoT (and smart toys in particular) is a huge opportunity. Moreover, using the right development platform, it could take less than a few hours to transition from being an app developer to an IoT developer.
“I also believe manufacturers know that they have to get on board the Internet of Things. Their customers are demanding it and we are here to tell them it doesn’t have to be complicated - there are solutions that serve as translators of the very complicated technology that can bring them into the IoT fold.”
This doesn’t make all physical product with digital applications a slam dunk. When asked what creators should keep in mind when developing a smart product, Orit said, “I have noticed many startups or product companies coming up with connected products that sound cool in theory, but don’t bring real value to the consumers, or have a price point which is just too high. I think that it’s important to spend time on planning and ideating the smart product so there is a good balance between functionality and cost and to always keep in mind the value for the consumers.”
Making Tomorrow’s Smart Products, Today!
Orit is very high on the people of Seebo herself, saying they’re a talented, inspiring group to be around. It helps that they’re working on the cutting edge of product development, and that they’re working towards making products what users dream about today. It’s all about the excitement of manufacturing products that would have been considered science-fiction not too long ago.
“Seebo is all about constantly changing technology,” Orit said. “We are technology agnostic, so we don’t focus on a specific sensor or connectivity solution that might get outdated after a certain period of time. We keep up to date with new technologies and sensors that come out, and we implement them into our IoT platform, so that any product company, no matter what smart functionality that is needed, will be able to use our software to develop smart products.”
When asked to conclude with a personal mission statement, Orit said it would be, “Helping any product team transform their traditional products to smart connected products seamlessly in order to meet the needs of today’s consumers.”
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