As a child, I remember constantly wanting a never-ending supply of crayons to doodle with. I revered colour pencil sets with 24 different colours, lusted over boxes with seemingly infinite rows of crayons in an attempt to own every colour that ever existed. My parents put their foot down at my fifth box of art supplies and my quest to discover all the colours in the world came to an abrupt end. It was a very sad time for me.
Now, children need not face the same obstacles that I met when I was a child – Mozbii, a colour picker stylus for kids developed by Taiwanese company Ufro, allows kids to capture and use any colour they set their eyes on.
This amazing stylus allows children to capture a colour by simply pressing the sensor of the Mozbii against the desired surface, say, a tabletop, or a flower petal. Once the buzzer beeps to confirm that the colour has been stored, kids can then doodle to their hearts’ delight on a tablet screen with the colour they had captured just seconds before.
“I am the father of two, 16 and 14 years old. Over the years, their growing experiences have been a huge inspiration to me,” said CEO of Ufro, Jeremy Shu on his inspiration on creating the Mozbii. “Ufro is all about kids’ natural curiosity and learning capability.”
“With Mozbii, kids are enabled by technology to collect and learn about colors in the real world.”
The Mozbii stylus is easy to use, and the flexible neck that is attached to the stylus is made from silica gel, ensuring that it would not warp or snap even with millions of presses. The battery life of the Mozbii is also impressive, lasting for several weeks between charges. The stylus charges magnetically so kids will find it easy to attach the power cord.
Mozbii can hold up to 12 colours in its built-in memory, and currently syncs with the Mozbii colouring app, also developed by Ufro. Get this – the app can hold unlimited colours, so kids can always find that perfect purple colour they obtained from the petal of an orchid three weeks ago. A magnet built into the body of the stylus means it can be attached to whiteboard surfaces or the kitchen refrigerator after use.
“The Mozbii coloring app is Mozbii’s first internally generated app and we’ll have more apps before launch and in the next few months,” said Shu in an interview with Technode. “In the meantime, we’ll have an SDK available for any partners interested in Mozbii to develop their app, or work with their existing apps.” This means that with time, kids who own the Mozbii stylus may be able to use it across a variety of doodling apps as more developers use Ufro’s SDK.
One of the ways that Ufro is looking to fund the Mozbii is with an upcoming Kickstarter campaign this August, and Shu has revealed that there are two other investors who are manufacturing partners, and that they are looking for future investors with good synergy to the Ufro business model.
The price of the Mozbii stylus will be revealed at a later date, and will be available for early-bird purchase in October via a variety of channels both online and offline, in China, Taiwan and the US. More details of the launch will be available once the Mozbii Kickstarter campaign is officially launched, and interested backers can leave your email here to get updates once the Kickstarter campaign is up and running.
Edit 26 August 2014: Removed initial pricing of Mozbii as was informed that pricing information has not been confirmed.
Update 4 September 2014: The Mozbii Kickstarter campaign has been launched! Currently, Mozbii has raised $40k, surpassing it’s original $30k goal.
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