Christmas batch · delivered by 15 December
For ages 3 and up
Your grandchild turns the dial to your face, holds the orange button and talks. You get a WhatsApp voice note, and your reply plays on their box. Nothing new to learn.
Buy it once, no monthly fees.
For grandparents
Good-morning songs, what they had for lunch, a story about the cat. Their voice notes arrive on your phone like any other message. Reply the way you always do, or send one first whenever you like, and they hear it in your own voice. You don’t install anything.
Buy one for themFor parents
No touchscreen, no feed, no apps and no strangers. Only the people you add can reach the box, and you set it up once from your own phone. Your child just turns a dial and talks.
Buy one for home
The dial moves through the people a grown-up has chosen, and only them, each shown by their photo.
The button glows while it records. Let go, and it arrives in that person’s WhatsApp as a voice note.
Grandma replies from her phone, wherever she is. A red dot appears by her face. Press the dial to hear her real voice.
Pictures show the working prototype design.
The grid is home. People with unheard messages appear again in the quick row at the top, while staying in their usual place below.
Early-bird prices
Each price is for a set number of boxes. When they’re gone, the next price starts.
White plant-based plastic case · aluminium dial
What it costs to own for two years
Pomma also needs its own giffgaff pay-as-you-go eSIM for WhatsApp, bought separately with £10 of credit. Have a 3D printer and a soldering iron? Build your own. Privacy.
How Pomma compares with the other ways to give a child a voice of their own.
| Question | Pomma | Tin Can | Xplora X6Play | Freckle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your child can send their voice | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Granny needs nothing new | Yes | Partly | No | Yes |
| No touchscreen for the child | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| No monthly fee | Yes | Partly | No | No |
Two-year costs are the device plus its monthly fees: Freckle, $199 phone, plus $25 a month after the first free month (US prices); Xplora X6Play, £179 watch, plus £7.99 a month (12-month minimum); Tin Can, £100 phone, plus £8.99 a month to call ordinary phones; Pomma, £159 once at full price (less for early birds), plus £10 of pay-as-you-go SIM credit. Prices and plans from each maker’s UK website, checked 27 September 2026; Freckle from its US shop, checked 1 October 2026 and converted at $1 = £0.75265 (it ships in December 2026). Freckle is a touchscreen phone that calls and texts contacts a parent approves, and its $25 plan is required after the first month. Tin Can calls to another Tin Can are free; calling an ordinary mobile needs the £8.99 plan. Xplora’s plan includes a SIM and GPS, and family use the Xplora app. Pomma runs on home wifi and needs its own pay-as-you-go SIM for WhatsApp; its £10 of credit is included above. Its code will be open source, with no Pomma server in the middle.
For parents
Whoever looks after Pomma gets a private page that opens in their phone’s browser. The child never sees accounts, numbers or settings.
Getting online takes a minute. Scan the code on Pomma’s screen, pick your network and type the password once. Hold the dial and button for five seconds to get a code for the parent page. It only opens on the same wifi as Pomma, and for security, the QR code changes every time.
Add as many people as you like, from your contacts or by number. Give each one the name your child knows and a photo, and change them whenever you like. Their order on the page is their order on the dial, and nobody else can reach the box.
Choose whether your child can send voice notes, see hearts and hear names spoken. Set quiet hours for bedtime, when messages still arrive but play silently. Save Granny’s wifi before you visit, or run it from a phone hotspot and a battery pack.
Updates install automatically, and Pomma only accepts ones signed by us. There’s no browser, app store or feed for a child to wander into.
“I wanted to give her a phone without giving her a phone.”Ed Dowding, Aurora’s dad
Aurora is almost three. She doesn’t need a smartphone or a feed, but she has plenty to tell the people she loves. Pomma started as a present for her third birthday.
Why the name? Pomma was our first family dog, and Aurora loved her. It is also just a nice name that happened to be surprisingly available.
Not just for children
Some families put a Pomma with a great-grandparent who doesn’t get on with smartphones. Turn the dial to a face, hold the button and talk; replies play out loud. No touchscreen, no passwords, no updates to tap through.
Ages 3 and up. It’s made for children old enough to turn a dial and hold a button down while they talk. Not suitable for children under 3.
Only the people you add on the parent page. Messages from anyone else never reach the box, and everything travels with WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption. There’s no browser, no app store and no feed on it, so there’s nothing else to wander into.
Just WhatsApp on their phone. Your child’s voice notes arrive like any other message, and they reply the way they always do. Only whoever keeps the box at home does the set-up.
You pay by card when you order, securely through Stripe. Your box arrives by 15 December, and we’ll email when it ships. Change your mind any time before it ships and we refund you in full: just reply to any email from us. If we miss the date, you can cancel for a full refund. After it arrives you still have 14 days to send it back.
Yes, up to four in one order: handy for siblings, or for a second home. Once the early-bird boxes have gone and the price is £159, buying two or more saves 10%.
So it shows up on everyone’s phone as its own contact, and your child’s messages never come from your number. A giffgaff pay-as-you-go eSIM with £10 of credit gives it the number. The box itself runs on your home wifi; the SIM just needs one text every few months to stay active, and the set-up guide shows you how.
There’s no Pomma server or subscription to switch off, so your box doesn’t depend on us day to day. The code will be open source, so updates can carry on without us.
Early-bird pre-order
Early-bird prices go up as boxes sell. Add your child’s name and we’ll emboss it on the lid. Change your mind before it ships and we refund you in full.
