Looped

Secure, screen-free home phone for children

The Looped team came to us with a well-defined aesthetic and an initial CAD model of the housing, and asked us to develop the electronics, refine the housing for cost-effective tooling, and bring the two together into one finished design. Built for conversation rather than screens, Looped is a secure home phone that gives primary-age children their own landline for calling family and friends. Parents manage Looped through an app, approving who their child can call and be called by, so nobody else can get through, and setting quiet hours for bedtime or school. There are no screens, apps or browsing on the phone itself.

The Challenge

The brief was to bring the simplicity of the family landline to children growing up surrounded by screens, with the security parents expect, while staying true to the nostalgic feeling the Looped team wanted to capture: calling a friend after school, wrapping the phone cable around your fingers, staying connected while practising the art of conversation.

Electronics and hardware development call for close collaboration between design and engineering. We brought in a third-party electronics developer, and worked alongside them to refine the housing so it would be cost effective to tool, making sure the electronics sat properly within the design rather than being fitted around it afterwards.

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The Outcome

Our in-house 3D printing room let us iterate quickly, checking the look and feel of the design and making tweaks to each element as the electronics was finalised. We also produced an initial batch of prototypes, which the Looped team used for testing, feedback and marketing.

Looped has launched online and will begin shipping in January 2027. It is already in the running for an ESEY award.

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