This smart sticker printer for kids is AI hardware I can get behind

I’ve been skeptical of many AI-first gadgets in recent years (think the Rabbit R1 and the Humane Pin), mainly because they overpromise and either underdeliver or fail spectacularly. There’s a lot that AI can do well, and perhaps right now we need more specifically targeted products… Like this little device that helps kids explore their creativity.

The Stickerbox from Brooklyn-based startup Hapiko turns your child’s wildest ideas—a tiger eating ice cream, or a lizard riding a skateboard—into printed stickers that they can immediately tear off and color with regular pencils and crayons.

It uses a combination of AI models to understand the clues and generate monochrome outlined artwork, while a thermal printer spits out the artwork on BPA- and BPS-free paper.

That’s all there is to it, and it’s actually quite genius. The idea came from Bob Whitney, co-founder of Hapiko, who was recently dusting off a desktop printer at home to create coloring pages based on his son’s imaginative ideas.

The compact Stickerbox – a 9.5 cm (3.75 in) cube that fits on a child’s desk – streamlines that entire process and puts children in control of the artistic output.

The company says it wants to ensure that your child doesn’t encounter anything untoward while using the device. To that end, the AI ​​will only listen to prompts as long as the large button on top of the Stickerbox is pressed, and will not sit in the background listening or storing voice data.

It is designed to filter swear words from prompts and also block inappropriate content before it even appears on the Stickerbox screen or is printed. Additionally, the upcoming mobile app will allow parents to rate creations previously printed on the box.

In addition to allowing kids to spend time coloring and away from screens, I like the idea that the Stickerbox encourages kids to exercise their imagination; as TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez noted in her review: the device is not limited to basic prompts; it covers extended trains of thought so children can be as descriptive or silly as they want.

The Stickerbox seems fairly reasonably priced: $99; including a set of colored pencils and three paper rolls (which amounts to 180 stickers). You can purchase additional rolls from the company for $5.99 for a pack of three.

While the output already looks pretty neat, I wonder if it could also be printed on transparent sheets so that kids can integrate their creations into existing scenes on different surfaces. There’s also no way to print a previous design, or save a ‘character’ to use in new ones. It would be nice to see such features in a future over-the-air update for the device.

Find the Stickerbox Hapiko’s product site.

Source: Hapiko Inc.

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