I don't want more screen time. How is a voice tutor different?
It is still a device in your child's hands, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What is different is what the device is doing. There is no feed to scroll and no video to watch. Your child is talking and listening, which is what they would be doing with a tutor sitting beside them. A good many sittings happen with the phone face-down on the table.
She sends them away from the screen
This is written into the lessons, not bolted on afterwards. Caldra will stop and tell your child to go and fold a piece of paper, or find two things in the kitchen and work out which is heavier, or count the steps to the gate. Then she waits, and asks what happened.
A tutor that needed your child's eyes on a screen for fifty minutes could not do that. A voice can.
Voice, not video
There is no video in Caldra. No autoplay, no next episode, no thumbnail designed to be irresistible. On some lessons there is a drawing on the screen while she explains, and it stops when the explaining does.
Nothing engineered to pull them back
No streaks. No badges, no points, no leaderboard, no notification at eight in the evening saying your child will lose something if they do not open it. Those exist to serve a daily-active-user number and we do not have one to serve.
What you control
You give consent before your child starts. You read everything they said. You can export the lot or delete the lot, whenever you want. And you decide when the device goes away. Caldra does not argue for one more sitting, because it has no reason to.
Sittings are short by design. We are not going to quote you a number of minutes per day, because the number that governs the app today is not the one a marketing page would want to print.
The part that is still screen time
Your child holds a phone, a tablet or a laptop, and it needs a microphone and a browser. There is no version of Caldra that works without one. If your objection is to the device itself rather than to what is on it, this does not solve your problem.
And there is no parental timer inside Caldra today. The device goes away when you say it does.
The questions that follow this one
Is a voice tutor just more screen time?
It is a device, and we will not pretend otherwise. What is different is what it does: no feed, no video, no streaks. Your child is talking and listening. Many sittings happen with the device face-down on the table.
Does Caldra use streaks or points to keep my child coming back?
No. No streaks, no badges, no points, no leaderboard and no evening notification. Those exist to serve a daily-active-user number, and we do not have one to serve.
Does the tutor ever get my child away from the screen?
Yes, and it is written into the lessons. Caldra will stop and send your child to fold a piece of paper, compare two things from the kitchen on a balance, or count the steps to the gate, then ask what happened.
How long is a sitting?
Short. We are not quoting a number of minutes per day on this page, because the figure that governs the app today is not the one we would want to print as a promise. You decide when the device goes away.