The beloved Amazon Alexa Skill, “Monster Guard,” has expanded its reach from smart speakers to mobile devices.
Designed to alleviate bedtime anxiety in children, Monster Guard playfully “scans” kids’ bedrooms for imaginary monsters (rest assured, no real monsters are detected!) before activating a “sonic forcefield” to keep the room monster-free.
Initially conceived by Anthony Gay for his daughter CharloMe, Monster Guard debuted as a smart-speaker skill in 2021, garnering over 60,000 downloads across Amazon Alexa devices and providing a cumulative 100 years’ worth of peaceful sleep.
Now, ReelWorld, the audio company where Anthony serves as Managing Director, aims to replicate this success in the app realm, enhancing the Monster Guard experience with innovative features and functionality.
Moreover, the app boasts a repertoire of soothing sleep sounds, original bedtime stories, and calming meditations. Perhaps most notably, it can sync with Philips Hue light bulbs, which pulsate and change color during the room scan process before transitioning to a reassuring magic nightlight mode.
Talking about the decision to adapt Monster Guard into a mobile app, Anthony said: “When we launched Monster Guard on Amazon Alexa two and a half years ago, we quickly realised we were onto something special. We were seeing hundreds, sometimes thousands of downloads a week and the 6-week user retention rate was in excess of 35%! To put that in context, the average retention rate for an Amazon Alexa skill is just 3% after only one week. We saw great potential in the concept regarding expansion and functionality, but we were frustrated by the limitations of the smart speaker platform. To fully realise our vision for Monster Guard, we decided to adapt it into an app. And, to ensure the end product would offer maximum value to users, we also partnered with renowned Child Sleep Trainer Lucy Shrimpton, Founder of ‘Sleep Nanny.’ We are so excited to share this new Monster Guard experience with tired parents and their children. The difference the Monster Guard skill made with my own children was incredible and I can’t wait for others to enjoy the benefits for themselves.”
The new app retains, at its core the same functionality as its Alexa-based predecessor – it checks for and protects against monsters.
However, the experience has been significantly enhanced, from audio-only to one that’s beautifully visual and highly immersive. Using augmented reality, the app ‘scans’ kid’s bedrooms for scary creatures before activating a ‘sonic forcefield’ to keep the room monster-free. (Don’t worry parents no monsters are ever actually detected. Phew!)
Talking about the methodology and creativity behind the app, Sleep Trainer Lucy Shrimpton added: “The Monster Guard ‘forcefield’ might not be real, but the reassurance it provides most definitely is! Some parents might argue that it seems counterintuitive to use an app that appears to validate a child’s fears, but there is real value in the Monster Guard Method. We tell our children Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are all real, so it makes sense they then have difficulty believing monsters aren’t, despite our repeated reassurances. Rather than deny the existence of Monsters, when it comes to tackling teraphobia, Monster Guard takes a different approach, and it does so in two ways. Firstly, by empowering the child and enabling them to take control of their fear and secondly by working to change their perception of Monsters. This is where the character ‘Monty’ comes in. With his heart-warming backstory, friendly, reassuring tone, and bedtime tales, Monty is the soul of the experience, a guardian-type character there to teach children that monsters aren’t so scary after all. They are just furry and friendly creatures like himself. I truly believe this app could be a game changer for parents desperately searching for a solution to help their kids settle to sleep scare- free.”