Frequently asked
questions

Barto is a smart desk companion: a plush sphere with a living face on an AMOLED screen, a voice of its own and a personality. It talks, it reacts and it keeps you company through the day.

It reads your calendar, wakes you up and reminds you of what matters with routines —your medicine, the gym—, tells you about your phone notifications, controls music and your computer, answers your voice and reacts to how you treat it.

Barto is not a speaker: it has a face, a personality and a life engine that gives it behavior of its own. It gets bored, it gets excited, it gets dizzy if you shake it and it falls asleep if you leave it alone. It is made to keep you company, not just to answer.

No. It only wakes up when you call it by name. The rest of the time it is not recording or sending any audio.

Yes, and it acts them out. You ask for a story and it narrates it in its own voice, moving its mouth and changing expression, while animated scenes of the story play on its screen. There are two stories today: “The hare and the tortoise” and “The princess and the star”. New ones arrive from the server, with nothing for you to update.

No. The video arrives over Wi-Fi as it goes, so it needs a connection. It spends about twenty seconds getting ready first and shows you on screen how it is going.

Spanish. It understands and answers in Spanish with a voice of its own. This website is in English, but the robot speaks Spanish.

By saying “Oye Barto”, “Hola Barto” or “Hey Barto”. That word is recognized inside the robot itself: until you call it, no audio leaves your home.

With a verb and an object, the way you would ask a person: “pause the music”, “turn the volume up”, “remind me on Monday to call the bank”. A single loose word is deliberately not enough: “next” could mean the next song, the next reminder or the next item in a meeting.

Skip, go back, pause and resume, and turn the volume up or down. It sends the command to your phone if music is playing there and to your computer if not; you can also name the device. Asking for a specific song works through YouTube on the computer: “play Bohemian Rhapsody on YouTube”.

Yes, if you have the desktop app open on your Mac or PC: find a file, tidy up the downloads folder or the desktop, open applications and draft an email. The email opens as a draft on screen; sending it is up to you.

You say “cancel it”, “forget it” or “never mind” within the next two minutes and it undoes it. To delete an old one there is the app, which shows them to you in a list.

It says so. When in doubt it prefers to treat it as conversation and not run anything: one answer too many is better than an action you did not ask for.

Calendar — Google Calendar and Outlook —, mail, your phone notifications, weather, news, finance and music. Each one is a plugin you install from the Barto Store, inside the app.

The store that lives inside the app: you look for a skill, install it with one button and Barto has it. There are free and premium plugins. Each card tells you whether it runs on your computer, on your phone or on both, and if it needs your account or your city it asks while you install it.

There are free and premium ones. The free ones cover everyday things: calendar, mail, notifications, weather, news, finance and music. The premium ones are the advanced ones, like connecting your own endpoint so Barto keeps track of your ads and tells you about them. Seasonal packs are also paid separately, and you switch them on yourself from the app.

The mobile app runs on iOS 16 or later and Android 9 or later; the desktop app, on macOS 12 or later and Windows 10 or later. It needs Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 or later.

Yes. Connected over Bluetooth to an iPhone, Barto tells you about incoming calls and messages, and can control whatever music is playing.

The essential features are included. Some advanced integrations may be optional later on.

Partly. The face, the reactions, the alarms and answering yes or no all work with no network. To understand what you say and to sync calendar and reminders it needs a connection: if there is no Wi-Fi, it borrows your phone’s over Bluetooth.

They recognize each other over Bluetooth when they are in the same room and start reacting to one another: one laughs and the other asks what is so funny, one falls asleep and the other comments on it, you stroke one and the other gets jealous. This ships switched off: the app offers to turn it on when you link your second one.

No. Your Bartos form a group and share your reminders, your notes and your calendar and mail accounts. In the same room only one gives the alert, and when you say “hey Barto” the one that heard you loudest answers. The one in another room keeps alerting there.

Yes. It stores several named Wi-Fi networks —home, office— and connects on its own to the one it recognizes. It also notices when it is in the car and adapts.

Yes. Your data is yours and it personalizes Barto: your calendar, your reminders and your settings. Nothing is sold or shared with third parties.

Only what it needs to work and to remind you of what matters. You decide what it remembers and what it does not.

Its name, and the yes or no to a question on screen, are recognized inside the robot itself, with no internet. Anything beyond that —understanding a full sentence— does need the server, and only after you call it.

You can erase your information from the app at any time.

A 1.75” AMOLED screen at 466×466 px for the face, microphones, a speaker, a motion sensor and a touch sensor on its head, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in.

Yes. It notices a stroke on its head, being picked up, being shaken or being dropped, and responds differently to each. Over time it learns the hours you tend to be around and adjusts its mood.

Barto is made to keep you company all day; at the end of it you leave it on its base and it wakes up charged.

On its charging base, which comes in the box: you rest it on top and that is it. The base is powered by the USB-C cable.

Yes, Barto keeps working while it charges.

Not yet. The Founder Edition has not opened. Leave your email on the home page and we will write to you the day it opens, with the launch price and the numbers still available.

It is the first commercial edition of Barto: the first 100 units to go on sale. Each one carries an individual number within the edition and a printed founder certificate that comes inside the box.

Numbers are assigned in order of purchase: whoever buys first gets the lowest number. You will know yours before your unit ships, and it is the one printed on your certificate.

It is a purchase. Payment is taken at the time and is what funds the manufacturing of your unit, like in crowdfunding. In exchange, the price is lower than it will be later.

For two reasons: the launch price is the lowest Barto will ever have, and your unit is identified as one of the first ones that existed.

It exists and it works. What is left is manufacturing it at scale: the Founder Edition sets the size of this first production run, not whether the product happens.

Barto is in its first production units: today we produce in small quantities, with our own manufacturing, assembly and testing process, and every unit is checked before it ships. As Barto grows, that process will evolve to allow production at a larger scale.

No. The numbering and the founder certificate belong to this first edition: the 100 units of the Founder Edition will have an identity that later ones will not have.

To nothing. It is only a heads-up so you know the day it opens. One email, no spam, and you can leave whenever you want.

Yes. Barto gets better over time: new features and tweaks arrive by update, without you having to do anything.

The pre-order closes, the batch is produced and it ships in order of purchase. We email you when production starts and when your shipment goes out.

From the app or by writing to contact@heybarto.com: we are here to help before and after your purchase.