Wocket

A home assistant you can talk to like a person.

Built for the people who gave up on technology. No screen, no app, no password, nothing to learn. You set it up once, for yourself or for someone you love, and after that there is nothing to do but talk to it.

Launching on Kickstarter. Waitlist members get first pick and the early-backer price. No money now, no spam, and we never sell your email.

Wocket: a small square speaker with a dark fabric body, a soft-touch top plate, and a glowing orange ring around the edge of the top.
Design concept for the finished enclosure. The prototype on my kitchen table right now is a circuit board, a speaker and a lot of tape, and you can watch it work below.
A real conversation

Try this with any voice assistant you have ever owned.

  • What was that thing you told me about my tomatoes last week?
  • WocketBlossom end rot. You were losing them at the bottom, and we figured it was uneven watering.
  • That's it. Tell me what to do about it, but go slow, I'm writing this down.
  • WocketTake your time. First one: water the same amount every day instead of a lot on Sundays. Tell me when you've got that.
  • Okay. Hold on, my hands are wet.
  • WocketI'll wait.
Wocket on a kitchen counter beside a plant and a coffee cup, its orange ring lit while it listens.

Say any of that to Alexa, Siri, or Google. Trail off, change your mind, ask it to hold on while you dry your hands, and it tells you it didn't catch that. Then you start over, from the top, saying its name again. Wocket just waits.

Why we built it

The one they'll actually keep using.

The tablet sits in a drawer. The phone is a wall of small buttons and one more password, and it dials people by accident. Wocket sits out on the counter and gets used every day.

None of that is anybody's fault. Those things were built for people who already like screens. Wocket was built for the ones who never did, and there is nothing on it to learn.

How it feels to use

It talks like a person, not a machine.

They can ramble. They can stop in the middle of a sentence and start over. They can ask a follow-up without saying its name again, or ask for the long version of the story.

Wocket keeps up the way a patient friend would, and it says so when it doesn't know something instead of making something up.

In their own words

Things people actually say to it.

Nobody has to learn special words or get the phrasing right. They ask the way they'd ask you if you were standing in the kitchen.

It works for people with low vision, people who never got comfortable with a computer, and anyone who is alone more of the day than they'd like to be.

  • What's the weather doing tomorrow?
  • How long do I roast a five-pound chicken?
  • Who was the actor in Casablanca, the one with the hat?
  • Read me something about the war, but not the sad parts.
  • I can't sleep. Keep me company for a while.

Three things, once.

Then nobody has to touch a setting again.

  1. Plug it in

    It arrives already set up under your account. It goes on the kitchen counter or the nightstand and plugs into the wall.

  2. Add their WiFi from your phone

    About two minutes, the next time you visit. After that it remembers the network. Wocket Go can skip this entirely and run on its own connection.

  3. Say "Hey Wocket"

    That's the whole manual. The top of the device is also a button, if they'd rather press something. When they're done, they tell it goodnight.

Why not a smart speaker? Or just a phone?

Honest answer: for you, a phone is better. It has a screen, it's free, and you already know how to use it. Wocket is for the person who can't or won't, and it's built around the things that actually stop them.

Feature Alexa, Siri or Google ChatGPT or Claude on a phone Wocket
Getting started App and account required App, account, login, updates Arrives set up. Family adds WiFi once.
Talking to it Commands. Say it wrong and it fails. A real conversation A real conversation, hands free, across the room
Asking a follow-up Say the wake word again every time Tap and type again Just keep talking
Stories and long answers Short and canned Very good, if you can read the screen Very good, read out loud
Needs a screen or steady hands No Yes No
Works with no smartphone in the house Not really No Yes
Turns the lights on Yes No No, and it isn't trying to
Looked after by a family member Awkward No Yes, from your own phone

If they already love the smart speaker they have, keep it. Wocket is for the people who gave up on theirs.

Two versions.

Same insides, same conversations. One stays home, one goes along.

Wocket Home

$149

For the kitchen counter or the bedside table. Plugs into the wall and uses the WiFi that's already there.

  • Real conversation, hands free, from across the room
  • Remembers what you talked about last time
  • Looks things up, tells long stories, reads them out loud
  • Weather, the shopping list, directions, music
  • Follow-up questions without saying its name again
  • Family adds the WiFi once, from a phone, and manages it from there

Wocket Go

from $249

Everything Home does, untethered. It uses WiFi when there is WiFi, and its own cellular connection when there isn't, so it keeps working in the car, on a walk, or in a house with no internet at all.

  • Everything Wocket Home does, in the same voice
  • WiFi and cellular, switching between them on its own
  • Works anywhere with a signal, no home internet required
  • Hours of battery, charges over USB
  • Goes in the car, to the park, to the doctor's waiting room

Plus a membership, from $9.99 a month

The membership covers the conversations. We run the AI, the voice and the servers, so nobody at home ever deals with an account, a key, or a bill they didn't expect.

  • 50conversations$9.99
  • 100conversations$19.99
  • 250conversations$29.99
  • 500conversations$49.99
  • 1,000conversations$89.99

Move up or down any time from your own phone. You're the one who approves it, so there's no way for a plan to change by accident.

Why I'm building this.

I built the first Wocket on my kitchen table with a soldering iron my dad taught me to use. The first real test wasn't a demo. It was my fiancée trying to have a conversation with it and telling me, honestly, everything that was wrong. It cut her off mid-sentence. It couldn't hear her from the couch. The stories were boring.

We fixed all three, and we're still fixing. This is a small company. The plan is to stay honest about what it can do, ship something that survives being unplugged a hundred times, and make a device an eighty-year-old can use on the first try.

A few things on this page are still being finished, and the case in the photo is a design, not a shipped product. I'll keep saying so here until it isn't true.

Jake Bernesby, Port Washington, New York

Questions we get.

Is it listening all the time?

It listens for its own name, on the device itself, and that's all it does until it hears it. Once a conversation starts the ring lights up, what's said is sent up to be answered, and the microphone stays open for a short while afterward so a follow-up doesn't need the name again. Then the ring goes out and so does the microphone. Conversations are never sold and never used for advertising.

Do they need a smartphone?

No. They don't need a phone, an email address, or an account. Everything on the setup side happens on your phone, not theirs.

What if they can't remember how to use it?

There's nothing to remember beyond talking to it. If the name slips their mind, pressing the top starts a conversation too. If it gets unplugged, plugging it back in is the whole recovery.

Can it call 911, or call me?

Not yet. Wocket is company, not a medical alert device, and we won't pretend otherwise. Calling and messages are the first thing on the list after launch.

What if the internet goes out?

Wocket Home says so, out loud, in plain words, so nobody is left talking to a silent box. Wocket Go switches to its own cellular connection on its own.

When does it ship?

We're launching on Kickstarter after the next round of testing. Waitlist members hear first, and we'll only take orders with a delivery date we can actually keep.

Get in line early.

Waitlist members get first pick and the early-backer price when Wocket launches on Kickstarter.

No money now. We'll email you when there's something real to see. Privacy