✦An AI agent + Qloo's taste graph
A talking picture board that sounds like home.
Every child deserves to say what they love. HomeTiles gives non-speaking children a talking picture board built from their own snacks, shows, places and family, by an AI agent using Qloo.
- English, Hindi, Spanish
- Child lock
- Taps stay on the device
- Parents approve changes
Leo, 8, London · a fictional demo child
Why we made this
It started with our little cousin.
When she was little, our cousin used a picture board to talk. It had the everyday words, but not hers: her snacks, her cartoons, the names of her family. Adding them was tricky, so mostly they just weren't there.
She could tap. The board just didn't have her words.
So we built HomeTiles: a board that starts from the words in a child's own life, and adds them for the family in about a minute.
AI alone vs. AI + Qloo
Same child. Two very different boards.
An AI alone can only guess from a child's form. Scroll, and each guess becomes the real thing Qloo finds for Leo.
Leo, 8 · Camden, London
AI alone: generic guesses. Nothing here is his.
- juiceRibenaa London favourite, checked in Qloo/search
- parkLondon Zooa real place 860 m from homeurn:heatmap
- cartoonPup Academyfans of Bluey love it too/v2/insights
- ice creamCornettopopular with kids around Camden/v2/insights
- caféCrêpes à la carteinside a taste hot-spot near homeurn:heatmap
- musicBeatles songssomething Leo and Grandma can share/v2/analysis/compare
An AI can only guess. Qloo knows what fans of his favourites love, what kids near his home like, and where those places are.
↓ Keep scrolling to swap in Qloo
- In Hindi, for Aarav in Delhi:पारले-जीदादू
- In Spanish, for Sofía in Los Angeles:TakisAbuela
See every screen
From a few questions to a board that talks
This is exactly what you'll see. Keep scrolling to move through each screen, or tap a step.
Step 1 of 7
Tell us about your child
First name, neighbourhood, language and 3–5 things they love. Each favourite is checked against Qloo as you type.
Built for how children learn
Two boards, one child
Core words like “I”, “want” and “stop” stay in the same place on both, so muscle memory works.
For me: the smart board
Learns on the device what the child says and when. After “I want” it shows their snacks and shows; in the evening, their cartoons. “Said before” repeats a whole sentence in one tap.
All words: the classic board
Every word lives in a fixed folder: food, places, favourites, family, fun, “I need”. Nothing moves, which many therapists prefer while a child is learning.
Either board, safely in their hands. “Give to Leo” goes full-screen and hides every menu; the back button is blocked. Parents exit by holding the lock for 2 seconds.
Under the hood
How HomeTiles uses Qloo
Follow one board from a parent's form to a child's hand. Scroll, and each stage switches on.
- Browser
- Server · Vercel
- Qloo taste graph
- On the device
1 · Browser
A parent answers 3 short steps
Neighbourhood, language, age group, what the child is like, 3–5 favourites and family. Each favourite is checked against Qloo as they type.
/createPOST /api/resolve/searchPasses on: the profile · names never go to Qloo or the AI
2 · Server · Vercel
One streaming request
The browser opens one request and watches the build live: every agent step and every Qloo call stream back as they happen.
POST /api/boardNDJSON stream4 builds / min / IPPasses on: favourite names + their types
3 · Qloo taste graph
Favourites become Qloo IDs
Each favourite is searched by type and name-checked, so “Paddington” means the film, not the station.
/searchtv_show · movie · videogame · brand · artistPasses on: Qloo IDs + city + age band
4 · Server · Vercel
A Gemini agent plans the research
With function calling, Gemini decides which Qloo tools to run and in what order, inside a 60-second budget. Its brief has no names. Any tool it skips, a scripted planner runs.
gemini-3.5-flashfunction callingfallback: 3.5 Flash-litePasses on: tool calls
5 · Qloo taste graph
Seven tools, each a real Qloo call
Every call goes through one facade: cache, a trace of each request, at most 2 in flight, back-off on 429.
expand_personal_taste
Shows, films, games and music that fans of their favourites love
/v2/insights · signal.interests.entities
match_temperament
Calm or energetic picks, from Qloo's descriptor tags
/v2/insights · signal.interests.tags
find_local_brands
Snacks popular where they live; the LLM proposes, Qloo verifies
/v2/insights · urn:entity:brand + location
find_local_places
Hottest taste cells near home, then real places inside them
urn:heatmap → urn:entity:place
shared_with_family
Tags a child and grandparent share, turned into things to enjoy together
/v2/analysis/compare → /v2/insights
audience_profile
Which age groups love each pick, so tiles fit the conversation
urn:demographics
whats_rising
Rising picks, so the child can join in at school
/v2/trending · bias.trends
hackathon.api.qloo.comPasses on: entities + affinity + why (explainability)
6 · Server · Vercel
A safety screen for children
Each result is checked against the child's age group: content ratings, a kids' genre for under-13s, ESRB for games, and no bars, energy drinks or coffee.
ageSafe()filter.content_ratingfilter.exclude.tagsPasses on: safe candidates
7 · Server · Vercel
The board engine ranks and lays out
score = 0.55 affinity + 0.25 local fit + 0.15 age fit + 0.05 popularity. Then folder quotas, fixed core-word slots, words in the family's language and ARASAAC pictograms.
engine.ts8 foldersGemini labels, template fallbackARASAACPasses on: the board, as JSON
8 · On the device
The board lives on the device
Board, taps and sentences stay in localStorage. “For me” predicts the next word on the phone itself: word pairs, time of day, the live topic. Nothing is sent.
localStorageWeb Speech APIchild lockPasses on: weekly: Qloo IDs + tap counts only
9 · Server · Vercel
Weekly refresh, the parent decides
Only anonymous Qloo IDs and tap counts go up. The most-tapped picks seed new Qloo insights; the parent ticks each change. Core, safety, family and locked tiles never move.
POST /api/refresh/v2/insights≤ 2 replace · ≤ 2 move
↺ And around again: each week the board grows with the child, and every tile keeps its Qloo evidence behind the purple ?.
“There's more to life than cookies.”
A mother, quoted by AAC researchers Light & McNaughton (2014)
Families give up on AAC when it doesn't fit their life and there's little support (Johnson 2006; Moorcroft 2020).
“Doesn't fit and doesn't work for us”: cultural and language mismatch came up in 8 of 11 parent studies (Gardiner 2025).
Users say humour helps people “see that I am a person”. HomeTiles adds jokes and banter about their favourites (CHI 2025).
Try it now
Build a board in about a minute
Watch the agent research a demo child live, in English, Hindi or Spanish. Or make one for your own child.
Demo children are fictional. HomeTiles supports speech-language therapists; it doesn't replace them.