Parihug’s Haptic Technology Makes Interactions More Personal And Emotional
Case Western-born Parihug is a toy company connecting loved ones through haptic telepresence technology.
Technology has the opportunity to bring us closer together by providing constant and instant connectivity to friends and family. Between cell phones and social media, this has never been easier: a recent Pew study tells us that nearly eight-in-ten online Americans use Facebook, and that cell phone owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day.
But technology has unintended consequences and often leaves people feeling lonely. Comedian and actress Charlene deGuzman satired this reality in the YouTube video above showing how technology is actually making us more alone. In fact, 87% of millennials admit to disengaging from conversation after being distracted by their phone.
Xyla Foxlin, a mechanical engineering student at Case Western University, founded Parihug based on the belief that it doesn’t matter how fast we can transmit data over the internet if that data carries no meaning to us as human beings. She argues that its incredibly difficult to share emotions over the internet — whether you want to share sympathy, excitement, love, or more.
Humans tend to rely on touch, and therefore virtual emotional connectivity comes with barriers. Parihug’s connected plush toys, fondly nick-named “Paris”, let you hug loved ones from anywhere in the world. When one Pari is hugged, it’s paired pal gently vibrates out the hug in real time, vice versa. When they’re both being hugged at the same time, the user will feel a heartbeat of the other person over all those miles. The science behind this haptic telepresence technology is simple: Hugs release oxytocin into the brain, a feel good hormone that can only be released through physical touch. Kids between roughly 2 and 7 years old are laying down the foundation for how they build relationships for the rest of their lives, and much of that is determined by how much they are being hugged.
Parihug is tackling the connected toys market, which is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2020, with connected toys fulfilling 11% of the connected products market by the end of 2017 (Consumer Technology Association). Parihug, the first consumer product focused on introducing physical touch to the communication space, will focus on military families, grandparents who live over a day’s drive from their grandkids, divorced parents, and parents who travel for more than a month per year, a total of approximately 800 million people in the USA alone.
Xyla began working on Parihug with a friend at at MHacks in 2015, a semiannual student-run hackathon held by the University of Michigan, where they built the first prototype. Xyla worked in consumer robotics at iRobot the summer before starting Parihug where she led the electromechanical manufacturing integration for a new product and learned about the manufacturing process in China. Thomas Hayes, who soon joined the team, draws experience as a hardware engineer after cofounding Phazon, a company creating one-size-fits-all wireless earbuds in 2014, which raised over $2million on Indiegogo. Dom Montante, who joined as a designer, has won several national and international design awards, and has children’s products already on the market.
The team leveraged the support of Danielle Strachmann and Michael Gibson from 1517 Fund, who first met Xyla at the hackathon and gave her the conviction to continue working on Parihug. Charles Stack and Shannon Lyons from Flashstarts, a startup accelerator in downtown Cleveland, were Parihug’s first investors, who supported Xyla and her team as a young founders within the Cleveland community.
On campus, Xyla spent time at think[box], Case Western’s open-access innovation center. The team set up an office there, where they set up a support network and conducted high caliber prototyping. Additionally, LaunchNET, Case Western’s entrepreneurship center, sponsored Parihug’s booth at CES, a moment that Xyla refers to as “their big break.”
We’re excited to work closely with Xyla and the Parihug team as they bring emotional connectivity to families nationwide. Stay updated on Twitter @parihug or pre-order your first toy at Parihug.com!
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