Frequently asked

A Care Circle is the group of trusted adults around one child. Each Care Circle supports one child, and each one has its own moments, Portraits, Help, and Promises.

Anything good you notice about the child. A kind word, a brave try, a belly laugh, helping without being asked. Big or small. The detail sentence is what makes it a memory. You don’t need to log every day. One honest observation is worth more than ten forced ones.

Every Sunday, Hōbi reads every moment the Circle noticed that week and writes a Portrait, a letter about who your child is becoming that no single person could write alone. It connects observations from different people and celebrates what the village sees together.

Every moment earns 10 sparks for the child. Sparks add up over time and can be used to unlock Promises, real experiences with people who love them. A fishing trip with Grandpa. A movie date with Auntie. The child picks the Promise. The person who offered it makes it happen. Sparks belong to the child, not the person who captured the moment.

Hōbi is free for families. We don’t show ads to children, and we don’t sell family data. If that ever changes, the app will tell you clearly before anything is asked of you.

The Notice a moment widget, Shortcuts, and Control Center open Hōbi so you can capture a moment. The Care Circle Home Screen widget can show recent Circle avatars on your own device, but it does not show child names or moment text. Apple redacts those avatars in locked or glanceable contexts.

You can edit your own moment within 24 hours of capturing it. After that, it’s locked so the record stays honest. You can delete your own moment any time. Admins don’t take down moments. They can hide one from the next Portrait if it isn’t a good fit, but the moment itself stays in the Circle’s feed.

Portraits need a few moments from the week to have enough to work with. If the Circle has a quieter week, the week is skipped. No pressure, no guilt. The moments still count toward sparks.

Things come up. Anyone who claimed a Promise can tap “Something came up” to send it back to the pool. No reason needed, no penalty, no record shown to the Circle. Once the Promise is back in the pool, anyone in the Circle can pick it up.

Help is where parents and admins can ask the Circle for support. Rides, meals, event coverage. Anything the village can pitch in on. Members can claim a task or RSVP to an event. No sparks involved, just coordination.

Yes. Admins can share a Help request as a Hōbi card in Messages or iMessage. You choose who receives it and tap Send yourself. Hōbi never auto-sends messages for you.

New members may need owner or admin approval before they can enter the Circle. That review helps the Circle confirm the right person is joining with the right access. You’ll get a notification the moment the admin lets you in.

Some Circle members have limited access by design. The Circle owner or an admin sets that access when they invite you or update your membership. Limited members can see Home, log moments, view Portraits, and see the Care Circle, but Help and Promises are reserved for full members.

Yes. You can leave any Circle at any time from Care Circle settings. Your departure is quiet. No notification is sent to the Circle owner. Your past moments remain part of the child’s record.

No. Hōbi will never show ads to children, never sell family data, and never turn your child’s moments into someone else’s product. There are no follower counts, no likes, and no public profiles.

Hōbi helpers are optional and off by default. When on, they can support user-content flows like voice categorization, proofread, invite text, and weekly Portraits when the Circle also has Weekly Portraits on. If either helper consent or Weekly Portraits is off, your moments are not sent to AI providers for that Circle’s Portrait. We never use Hōbi data for advertising or to train general models. Previously generated Portraits stay accessible if helpers or Weekly Portraits are turned off later.

No. Hidden moments are silent admin curation. The moment stays visible in your Circle’s feed and you keep authorship of it. Only the upcoming Portrait skips it. Admins can also restore a hidden moment back into the Portrait pool from the Hidden moments tray in Care Circle settings.

Child profiles require a birthday and support ages 0 to 17. There’s no automatic pause at 13. Children never create Hōbi accounts. Adults manage the profile and Circle throughout the experience.

Yes. Go to Settings, Profile, Email, then verify the new address with the code or link Hōbi sends. If you use Sign in with Apple, your Apple identity stays connected, but your Hōbi account and contact email can change.

Hōbi is for adults 16 and older. Your birthday is used for that age gate. You can update it once yourself in Settings. After that, contact support if it needs to change.

Yes. Hōbi is built for families of every shape: big families, blended households, foster families, multigenerational homes. You can create up to 12 child profiles, and each one gets its own Care Circle (every Care Circle is for one child). There’s no cap on how many Circles you’re invited into either, because the grandparents, aunts and uncles, godparents, and close family friends who already show up for several kids belong in each Circle that invites them.

Hōbi is an iPhone app today. Android and a web experience are coming. We’re working through them now. The only thing on the web right now is the invite flow at join.hobi.kids, which lets a new member open the app.

Inside the app, go to Settings → Manage Account → Delete Account. Deletion is permanent. Before you delete, you can export your data from Settings → Manage Account → Export My Data. If you created a Circle, deleting your account ends that Circle for everyone in it, so consider transferring ownership first or deleting the Circle on its own.