Connected & AI Integration
App setup and control, and AI voice interaction, for toys and small appliances.
There are two integration directions. Each can be evaluated on its own or combined in one product. This page introduces them; the exact functions are defined with you for each project.
App setup & control
A phone app provisions the toy or integration module over BLE or Wi-Fi (BLE provisioning or SoftAP) and registers it with the cloud. From then on, the app controls the functions the product supports, locally or remotely over MQTT / HTTPS.
How it works
- 1Device discovery (BLE scan)
- 2Wi-Fi provisioning
- 3Cloud registration & status
- 4Remote control in the app
- The connection method (BLE, Wi-Fi or another protocol) and supported phone platforms depend on the actual implementation.
- OTA firmware updates and device state sync (device shadow / digital twin) can be planned in.
- Not every device or browser supports every connection method.
AI voice interaction & control
Through an integration module, a toy or small appliance streams voice to the cloud: speech recognition (ASR) turns it into text, an LLM understands the request and writes a reply, and text-to-speech (TTS) speaks it back. Supported device actions can be triggered through function calling.
How it works
- 1Wake word & voice input
- 2ASR speech recognition
- 3LLM understanding & reply
- 4TTS voice reply or device action
- The AI service, supported languages, response time and controllable functions are chosen and tested for each project.
- Persona, prompt design and content safety filtering are tuned per product, which matters especially for children's products.
- This needs a network connection; it is not an offline feature.
Cloud & AI service options
The cloud platform and AI services are chosen with you, based on target market, cost, data residency and regulations. Options we can evaluate include:
IoT cloud platforms
Device connectivity, device management and OTA updates.
- AWS IoT Core
- Microsoft Azure IoT Hub
- Alibaba Cloud IoT Platform
- Tuya IoT (SaaS)
- Self-hosted MQTT broker
Large language models
Conversation, intent understanding and content generation.
- OpenAI GPT
- Anthropic Claude
- Google Gemini
- Azure OpenAI
- Qwen / DeepSeek (China market)
Speech technology
The voice pipeline from listening to speaking.
- Cloud ASR (speech recognition)
- TTS (speech synthesis)
- Wake word detection
- VAD (voice activity detection)
Deployment models
Chosen by time to market and how much control you need over data.
- SaaS platform: faster launch
- Your own cloud account: full data control
- Hybrid architecture
The providers above are examples of options we can evaluate, not partnerships or distribution agreements. The final choice depends on the project, each service's terms and regional availability.
Separate or combined
App control and AI voice interaction can be evaluated independently or combined in the same product.
Hardware to plan for
Adding connectivity or AI usually means evaluating an extra connectivity module, a microphone and audio hardware. A voice IC or MCU on its own does not provide networking or LLM capability.
Integration work we can help with
- Hardware evaluation: Wi-Fi / BLE modules, microphones, audio codec and amplifier
- Device and module firmware, including provisioning and OTA updates
- App connection flow and control UI
- Cloud connectivity over MQTT / HTTPS, device management and data
- Voice pipeline: ASR, LLM, TTS, prompt and persona design
- Mapping LLM function calls to device control commands
Planning a connected or AI product?
Share your product and the functions you have in mind, and we will look at what fits.