A wearable ring, conversational AI and US$23M in funding. Sandbar wants to rethink how we interact with technology
Updated
March 12, 2026 5:59 PM
Sandbar's Stream ring. PHOTO: SANDBAR
Sandbar, a New York–based interface startup, has raised US$23 million in Series A funding to develop a wearable device that lets people interact with artificial intelligence via voice rather than screens.
Adjacent and Kindred Ventures led the round; both venture firms focused on early-stage technology startups. The investment brings Sandbar’s total funding to us$36 million. Earlier backing included a US$10 million seed round led by True Ventures, a venture capital firm, as well as a US$3 million pre-seed round supported by Upfront Ventures, a venture firm and Betaworks, a startup studio and investment firm.
Sandbar was founded by Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, who previously worked together at CTRL-labs, a neural interface startup acquired by Meta in 2019. Their earlier work explored how computers could respond more directly to human intent — an idea that continues to shape Sandbar’s approach to AI interfaces.
The new funding will help the company expand its team across machine learning, interaction design and software engineering as it prepares to launch its first product. That product, called Stream, combines a wearable ring with a conversational AI interface. The system allows users to speak to an AI assistant without unlocking a phone or opening an app.
The concept is simple. Instead of typing into a screen, users press a button on the ring and talk. The system can capture notes, organize ideas, retrieve information from the web or trigger actions through connected applications.
The ring includes a microphone, a touchpad and subtle haptic feedback. These elements allow the device to respond through gentle vibrations rather than visual alerts. According to the company, the ring only listens when the user presses the button — a design meant to address common concerns around always-on microphones.
That design reflects a larger shift Sandbar believes is underway. As AI assistants become more capable, many startups are experimenting with new ways to interact with them. The focus is moving away from screens and keyboards toward interfaces that feel more natural and immediate.
Stream uses multiple AI models working together to process requests, search the web and structure information in real time. The company says users remain in control of their data and can choose whether to share information with other apps.
Sandbar is also developing a feature called Inner Voice, which responds using a voice customized to the user. The feature will debut during a closed beta planned for this spring, giving the company time to refine how the software behaves in everyday use.
The startup currently employs a team of 15 people. Many have worked on well-known consumer devices including the iPhone, Fitbit, Kindle and Vision Pro. Recent hires include Sam Bowen, formerly of Amazon and Fitbit, who joined as vice president of hardware and Brooke Travis, previously at Equinox, Dior and Gap, who now leads marketing.
Sandbar plans to begin shipping Stream in summer 2026 after completing early testing. As artificial intelligence tools become more integrated into daily life, the company is betting that the next shift in computing will not come from another app — but from new ways for people to interact with AI itself.
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A closer look at how reading, conversation, and AI are being combined
Updated
February 7, 2026 2:18 PM
Assorted plush character toys piled inside a glass claw machine. PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
In the past, “educational toys” usually meant flashcards, prerecorded stories or apps that asked children to tap a screen. ChooChoo takes a different approach. It is designed not to instruct children at them, but to talk with them.
ChooChoo is an AI-powered interactive reading companion built for children aged three to six. Instead of playing stories passively, it engages kids in conversation while reading. It asks questions, reacts to answers, introduces new words in context and adjusts the story flow based on how the child responds. The goal is not entertainment alone, but language development through dialogue.
That idea is rooted in research, not novelty. ChooChoo is inspired by dialogic reading methods from Yale’s early childhood language development work, which show that children learn language faster when stories become two-way conversations rather than one-way narration. Used consistently, this approach has been shown to improve vocabulary, comprehension and confidence within weeks.
The project was created by Dr. Diana Zhu, who holds a PhD from Yale and focused her work on how children acquire language. Her aim with ChooChoo was to turn academic insight into something practical and warm enough to live in a child’s room. The result is a device that listens, responds and adapts instead of simply playing content on command.
What makes this possible is not just AI, but where that AI runs.
Unlike many smart toys that rely heavily on the cloud, ChooChoo is built on RiseLink’s edge AI platform. That means much of the intelligence happens directly on the device itself rather than being sent back and forth to remote servers. This design choice has three major implications.
First, it reduces delay. Conversations feel natural because the toy can respond almost instantly. Second, it lowers power consumption, allowing the device to stay “always on” without draining the battery quickly. Third, it improves privacy. Sensitive interactions are processed locally instead of being continuously streamed online.
RiseLink’s hardware, including its ultra-low-power AI system-on-chip designs, is already used at large scale in consumer electronics. The company ships hundreds of millions of connected chips every year and works with global brands like LG, Samsung, Midea and Hisense. In ChooChoo’s case, that same industrial-grade reliability is being applied to a child’s learning environment.
The result is a toy that behaves less like a gadget and more like a conversational partner. It engages children in back-and-forth discussion during stories, introduces new vocabulary in natural context, pays attention to comprehension and emotional language and adjusts its pace and tone based on each child’s interests and progress. Parents can also view progress through an optional app that shows what words their child has learned and how the system is adjusting over time.
What matters here is not that ChooChoo is “smart,” but that it reflects a shift in how technology enters early education. Instead of replacing teachers or parents, tools like this are designed to support human interaction by modeling it. The emphasis is on listening, responding and encouraging curiosity rather than testing or drilling.
That same philosophy is starting to shape the future of companion robots more broadly. As edge AI improves and hardware becomes smaller and more energy efficient, we are likely to see more devices that live alongside people instead of in front of them. Not just toys, but helpers, tutors and assistants that operate quietly in the background, responding when needed and staying out of the way when not.
In that sense, ChooChoo is less about novelty and more about direction. It shows what happens when AI is designed not for spectacle, but for presence. Not for control, but for conversation.
If companion robots become part of daily life in the coming years, their success may depend less on how powerful they are and more on how well they understand when to speak, when to listen and how to grow with the people who use them.