Great trust. A small data trail.

Good to know: Komy speaks German. Voice, stories, encyclopedia, learning games and the parents’ app are in German; contract language and legal texts are German as well.

What the KOMY Phone cannot do

• No open internet. The phone runs as a locked device. The child sees only Komy’s world; browser, app store, settings and all other apps are out of reach – even after a restart.
• No calls, no messages. There is no phone and no chat interface. SOS to the parents is a button of its own; after an SOS your child can speak once, briefly, and you answer once – 15 seconds at most each, with no history. On top of that there are knocking and Sprechfunk (below). None of it is a messenger.
• Knocking. Your child taps “Mama Bescheid sagen” (tell Mum), you get a notice and answer with a single tap – “I’ll be in touch shortly” or “Not now”. No text, no reason, no recording. For each child you switch it on or off and decide how often a day it is possible (once to five times). Not during lessons and not at night; the SOS button always works.
• Sprechfunk instead of a phone call. You hold a button, speak for at most 15 seconds, let go – the message plays by itself at your child’s end, then it is their turn. The KOMY Phone’s microphone only turns on once your child taps “Annehmen” (accept), and only while they hold the button. Every message is locked with your family’s key; the cloud only carries it. Heard means deleted, and after 15 minutes at the latest it is gone from the cloud too. Only your paired parent phones can ring, not during lessons and not at night – except as an answer to an SOS. Per child you choose: “only as a reply” (the default), “any time” or “off”.
• No listening in. There is no function with which parents could secretly listen to the phone or eavesdrop on their child’s surroundings – not hidden, not for a surcharge, not for us. The microphone only turns on when your child taps or starts something: in the Komy call, when reading aloud, in games, in the morning and evening routine, in Mein Heft (my notebook) when they tap “Sagen” (say it) while entering homework – and after an SOS, when they press “Sag kurz, was los ist” (say briefly what is wrong). In the routine, which your child starts with “Los geht’s” (let’s go), the microphone opens by itself for at most 10 seconds after each of Komy’s questions so your child can simply answer; the phone then shows “Komy hört zu …” (Komy is listening). The same happens once during setup, when Komy asks for the name, and after school, when Komy asks of his own accord how the day went: after each question the phone listens for up to 10 seconds. You can never start a recording from your side. (The German Federal Network Agency banned children’s watches with a listening function as illegal transmitting devices; buyers had to destroy them. We do not build anything like that.)
• Every family is named differently. Each adult decides on their own phone what the child calls them – Mama, Papa, Oma, Opa or a name of their own such as “Tante Inge”. The KOMY Phone and Komy then say exactly that. If nothing is chosen, Komy says the neutral “deine Familie” – never “Mama oder Papa”. The name travels encrypted between your phones. For single parents, grandparents and foster families this is not a special case but the normal one.
• No AI chatbot. No language model runs on the phone. Every sentence Komy says was written in advance, checked by a human and stored on the phone as audio. Komy holds no conversation, answers no questions, grades nothing.
• No camera for the child. The KOMY Phone’s camera only turns on in parent mode behind your Komy code, to read the Wi-Fi QR code – on the device, without taking a photo. You photograph the timetable and letters from school on your parent phone.
• No looking things up online. The children’s encyclopedia (5,107 articles from Klexikon and MiniKlexikon, in German) is stored completely on the phone. What your child looks up is not recorded. Sensitive topics – war and violence, death, body and sexuality, addiction, crime, about 140 articles – stay invisible until you switch them on in the parents’ app; religion is deliberately open.
• No permission prompts for the child. Everything is set at the factory; if a permission is missing, the feature quietly switches off.

Where what is stored

On the child’s phone, only there

The memory book from reading aloud, the Magic Sky, Komy’s planned sentences, game progress, the home map from geography, the Komy code and the child code. The database is encrypted. None of it goes into a Google backup or travels along when the device is changed.

On your parent phone

An encrypted backup of the child’s data, so that a lost phone does not cost Komy’s memory. It can only be opened with the family recovery key, which lives exclusively on parent phones; the parents’ app shows only the date and size of the backup. It holds, among other things, the memory book, the Magic Sky and the learning notes. Never in it: the child’s typed words, the child’s own stories, codes and keys. It is transferred only in the same room via Bluetooth.

There is no name and no child account in the cloud

The family entry at Google Firebase (EU region) holds per device: model, role, battery level, “last seen”, app version, Wi-Fi or data SIM, normal or missing, whether the alarm clock is on, and an ID for notifications (push token). Plus the values you set yourself – weather place, federal state, school bag list, holidays, reading level, the chosen Komy figure, optionally a birthday, routine steps, cards for the child, encyclopedia and game approvals, your settings for knocking, Sprechfunk, Komy time and “Erst erledigen” (do it first), your reading time (time and length), and whether you consented to more detailed learning notes –, your child’s “So passt es mir” (how I like it) settings, their ticks on the school bag list and a random child ID. Never the child’s name, never words, voice, learning notes or memories. Alongside: appointments, chores, rewards, safe places, location and alarm entries that only your family can read.

What leaves the phone, and when

• The child’s position goes to the parents’ app: every minute only while a parent has the live map open; at once when a safe place is reached or left, on “Where are you?”, on SOS and once when the battery is almost empty; over the data SIM also the last known position with each contact (about every two hours). On Wi-Fi nothing is reported in between. Location entries can only be read by parents.
• SOS with a voice: after an SOS your child can say once, briefly, what is wrong – 15 seconds at most, within the first three minutes, at most three recordings a day. Nothing is recorded unless the child taps. You can answer once (15 seconds at most, within 30 minutes); you can never start one yourselves. Both are sealed with the family key, which exists only on your paired phones, and are deleted after listening. Your answer sits encrypted on the child’s phone until your child hears it, for a day at most – after that it is gone. There is no history. Your child hears your answer only when they tap it. In the parents’ app you can switch the voice message off; the SOS itself always goes through. The parents’ app uses your phone’s microphone only for this answer and for Sprechfunk, while you hold the button.
• To our own KOMY server (no third party): if Komy does not know a first name or a school subject yet, the phone sends exactly this one word – a rare first name of your child or of a caregiver, or a rare school subject. A voice service records it once; after that the recording stays on the phone. Subjects go only over Wi-Fi, a name also over the data SIM. Around 1,200 common first names and the usual subjects are already on the phone. In addition, at night, only on Wi-Fi and while charging, the phone checks for updates and downloads them; only the installed version is sent along. Each request carries a random installation ID and a device proof – nothing about the child. Weekdays, appointment titles, practice topics and reading reminders do not leave the phone.
• Walkie-talkie (Sprechfunk): messages your child records itself – only while holding the button, 15 seconds at most – travel sealed with your family’s key through the cloud to your paired parent phones. The cloud only passes them on; once heard they are deleted, and after 15 minutes at the latest they are gone from the cloud too. There is no history.
• Komy time, only if you have set it: a single entry for today – the date, the minutes spent on counting screens, today’s budget and whether the time is up. It goes to your parents’ app via Google Firebase and can only be read by your family; unlike the voice messages it is not additionally sealed with the family key. Each report overwrites the previous one: no history, no time of day, no breakdown by game. If Komy time is off, nothing is reported and the entry is deleted.
• Reading time, only if you have set it: one word for today – open, started or done – with the date. It goes to your parents’ app via Google Firebase and can only be read by your family; it is not additionally sealed with the family key. Each report overwrites the previous one: no history, no minutes, no book titles. If reading time is off, nothing is reported and the entry is deleted. What was read and for how long stays on the KOMY Phone.
• Otherwise nothing of the child’s voice. Listening in the Komy call, in games, in the morning and evening routine (about 46 words such as “ja”, “nein”, “fertig” or “später” – yes, no, done, later), when Komy asks after school, for “Sagen” in Mein Heft and for the name is pure offline recognition with a fixed word list: recognised on the device, discarded at once, no upload. Where Komy only hears whether someone is speaking – when reading aloud, for example – the phone measures the volume; the throwaway file this needs is read by nobody and deleted at the end.
• Weather: the child’s phone asks the weather service with the place you chose – never with the child’s position.
• Your parent phone: the parent account (e-mail and name, never anything about the child). Photos of the timetable and of letters from school go through our server to Anthropic (Claude) to be read; they are processed once and not stored by us.

Parents’ app: Android today, iPhone planned

The parents’ app is currently available for Android; all features are there. With an iPhone you set up the KOMY Phone directly on the device, in parent mode behind your Komy code – that works today. A parents’ page in the browser for location, messages and chores is in preparation and not available yet. Until then, location, messages, chores and the SOS alert only arrive on an Android phone or tablet. A dedicated iPhone app is planned, with no date yet.

Your rights and switches

• Consent for the learning companion: more detailed learning notes are only created after your consent in the parent settings. There you can consent, withdraw and “delete learning traces”; detailed notes are deleted automatically after 90 days. Without consent the phone only notes which topic came up when – it deletes these topic lines after 28 days. Both are kept on the child’s phone and in the encrypted backup on your parent phone; “delete learning traces” empties the child’s phone.
• Komy time: for each child you set how long they can play, work in My Notebook and call Komy each day – separately for school days and days off, Off or 30 to 120 minutes; both start out Off. SOS, the encyclopedia, My Plan, alarm clock, chores, routines, knocking, walkie-talkie, reading aloud to Komy and Komy’s stories never count, and nothing counts during school time. Your child sees no clock; Komy gives a heads-up about five minutes before. With “+15 min today” or “+30 min today” you add more on the spot. Komy time is never a reward or a punishment.
• Reading time: a fixed daily reading time per child – a time between 3 and 7 pm, 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes; off at the start. From that time on Komy invites once a day: “Es ist Lesezeit. Liest du mir aus deinem Buch vor?” (It’s reading time. Will you read to me from your book?) – never during lessons, not at night, never as a reproach. Reading aloud to Komy, “Lies mir meine Geschichte vor” and “Komy erzählt” count towards it. Your child sees no clock; on your home screen you only see one word for today: “at 5 pm”, “started” or “done ✓”.
• Delete family: in the parents’ app under “Profil”; deletes your parent account, the family and its cloud entries.
• Phone missing: lost mode shows only a neutral screen, the data stays encrypted on the phone; “found” lifts it. “Kinderdaten löschen” (delete child data) makes all the child’s data unreadable. All commands are signed and bound to exactly one device.

Overview

Encyclopedia content from the Klexikon and MiniKlexikon of the Zentrale für Unterrichtsmedien (ZUM), licence CC BY-SA. The Klexikon is an independent project; Sysea is not affiliated with ZUM.

How to set up the KOMY Phone – including the encyclopedia topics and the choice of games – is shown in the user manual (German).

How this is enforced technically is on the page How the KOMY Phone is built. The binding privacy policies are in German: KOMY service and website.