Mini Hug Makes Sure You Spend Enough Time With Your Kids

SINGAPORE, 5 June 2014 — Do you sometimes feel guilty that you don’t spend enough time with your kids? How do you keep track of the quality moments you share with the little ones? What activities do you and your children engage in?

Mini Hug, a new mobile-based app that helps keep track of the number of hours and the kinds of activities parents and their children engage in, lets users do just that!

Mini Hug was jointly created by Erwan Mace, CEO of Bitsmedia, a Singapore-based mobile apps developer, and his 7 year old daughter Lia over the course of the year as they both wanted to spend quality time together.

“The main concept, as well as the name was entirely my daughter’s, and I then empowered her to take the idea to an actual app which we designed together and which I coded for her,” said Mace.

All parents need to do to get started is to create a profile for each of their little ones, and Mini Hug will help them keep a personal log on how they engage with their loved ones, gaining ‘rewards’ points accordingly.

Much like a journal, Mini Hug lets users add activities they have completed with their children, as well as record how much time they spend doing it. There is even a feature that lets users take a picture to remember those cherished moments. These activities can be as simple as going for a swim, playing a game, cooking or even doing homework, as long as parents do it with their child. Up to 30 activities can currently be tracked, and more will be added in the near future.

Parents accumulate points through each activity that they do with their child, letting the app track what activities have received the most or least attention. 

Additionally, this app provides the user with a detailed summary of the total number of hours spent and activities done, in the form of a simplified pie chart. Points can also be tracked on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis — which provides an excellent opportunity to review not only the types of activities or number of hours that parents have spent on but also their progress over time.

Mini Hug hopes that this basic gamification of parenting through the point system will help motivate parents to spend more time with their children — not only by monitoring their own score but also by challenging their friends through the app’s leaderboard.

Mace feels this will be a good app for parents who are especially busy trying to juggle working and home life.

“People are always so busy nowadays, that they might not even have time for those who should be their number one priority: their children! Mini Hug was created to help parents keep a log of how much time they spend, as well as what activities they engage in with their children,” Mace added. “I work from home most of the time and with both her parents at home, our daughter was hoping to help her friends and other kids enjoy the same kind of privileged time she gets to spend with us. My hope is that this app will encourage parents to spend as much time as they can with their little ones!”

Bitsmedia is also the creator of Muslim Pro, which recently celebrated it’s milestone of having over 11 million downloads, as well as Quit Pro, the smoking cessation app.

Availability

Mini Hug is now available for free on iOS, and can be downloaded on the Apple App Store, at https://itunes.apple.com/app/id867421014