My Story

HAKONE AI Began in One Family’s Living Room

Chapter 1

A Long Prayer, and My Encounter with Zen

For many years, my wife and I waited for a child.

Year after year after our marriage, we were not blessed with one.

Our life was not financially easy.

There were limits to what we could do.

Still, we continued our days while quietly hoping that one day a child might come into our lives.

During that time, we were introduced to Cho-o-ji, a Soto Zen temple in Japan.

For us, it was not simply a temple.

It became a place of prayer.

A place where we could quietly look back at our own hearts.

A place that helped us endure a long season as husband and wife.

As I spoke with the chief priest over time, I began to encounter Zen.

Until then, I had lived as a person always rushing.

Rushing through work.

Rushing through daily life.

Worrying about a future that had not yet arrived.

Regretting things that had already passed.

I did not know how to simply receive the present moment with stillness.

The teachings of Zen became a turning point for me.

To bring attention back to this moment.

To stop trying to force everything into place.

To quiet the inner posture, rather than be carried away by everything outside.

These ideas later flowed deeply into the design philosophy of HAKONE AI.

Eventually, after many years, my wife and I were blessed with a child.

That day is one I will never forget.

After such a long time, we finally met a small new life.

We named our daughter Hakone.

In Japanese, her name is written with three characters:

Wave.

Light.

Sound.

Those three words would later become connected to the name HAKONE AI.

From the moment our child was born, a new question began to grow inside me.

This child would grow up in a world where smartphones, tablets, AI, videos, and social media were already part of everyday life.

As a parent, what should I hand to her?

Should I keep technology away from her?

Should I simply forbid it?

Or should I help create a new way for her to live with technology?

That question became the first seed of HAKONE AI.

Chapter 2 Searching for a Path That Does Not Take the Phone Away

As our child grew, my wife and I became more aware that one day we would hand her a smartphone.

As parents, of course we had concerns.

Modern apps and video platforms are designed so that the next post, the next video, and the next notification keep appearing naturally.

The problem is not only screen time.

The real problem is that endless scrolling has no natural stopping point.

A parent says, “It’s time to stop.”

The child says, “Just a little more.”

That exchange repeats night after night.

The parent becomes tired.

The child resists.

And little by little, the atmosphere in the living room becomes tense.

I wanted to avoid that future as much as possible.

Of course, there are simple options available to parents.

Take the smartphone away.

Block the app.

Set a time limit.

Create strict rules from above.

But I felt there was a limit to that approach.

If a child is riding a bicycle, and an adult pulls the child off from behind, that does not mean the child has learned how to get off the bicycle.

The child needs to feel the brake.

The child needs to learn the sensation of slowing down.

The child needs to find balance and step down with their own feet.

I began to wonder whether scrolling was the same.

Perhaps what a child needs is not only for the screen to stop.

Perhaps what a child needs is to practice stopping by themselves.

That idea gradually became what I call the “how to get off the bicycle” theory.

The smartphone is not the enemy.

Technology is a tool that children will need in the age ahead.

That is why we need more than prohibition or isolation.

We need a way to live with technology.

Zen teaches the importance of not falling into extremes.

Not forcing everything into control.

Not leaving everything completely unattended.

Instead, it invites us to search for a quiet path in between.

I began to connect what I had learned through Zen at Cho-o-ji with the modern question of how families live with smartphones.

Do not treat the smartphone as an enemy.

But do not be carried endlessly by it either.

Do not make the parent shout in order to stop the child.

Instead, help the child practice pausing through their own senses.

Could such a small structure be created inside the home?

That question led to the first shape of HAKONE AI.

Chapter 3

Giving Zen to the Finger

When we handed a smartphone to our daughter, my wife and I did not want to hand her only a device.

At the same time, we did not want to hand her only strict restrictions.

So I created a small prototype system for our home.

That became the first prototype of HAKONE AI.

Its purpose was not to force the smartphone to shut down.

It was not to monitor the child.

It was not to give commands in place of the parent.

Its purpose was only one thing:

to create a small moment of pause in the middle of endless scrolling.

I decided to begin with the fingertip.

When we scroll, our attention is usually absorbed by the information inside the screen.

But what is actually moving is the finger.

And before we notice it, that finger begins to move almost automatically.

Next.

So I began to ask myself:

Could we bring awareness back to that finger?

Not to the world beyond the screen,

but to the sensation of the fingertip in the present moment.

To the feeling of touching glass.

To the small choice of pausing once.

That idea later became Yubizen — Finger Zen.

Yubizen is not a difficult spiritual practice.

It is a small pause.

A moment of bringing attention back to the fingertip touching the smartphone screen.

A way to listen, rest the finger, and create a little distance from the screen.

We also incorporated natural water sounds recorded in Hakone.

Quiet sounds created by spring water and layers of earth and stone.

When these sounds play through a smartphone speaker, some users may feel a subtle vibration through the device, depending on the model, volume, case, and environment.

This is not a mechanism for forcefully closing the screen.

It is a quiet cue that gently reminds the fingertip:

“Perhaps now is a moment to pause.”

But the most important moment comes after the smartphone is placed down.

Even if a child steps away from the screen, if there is no parent-child conversation waiting there, the living room remains silent.

That is why HAKONE AI was never designed to make AI the main character.

If AI keeps talking endlessly, it simply becomes another form of scrolling.

The role of HAKONE AI is to remain in the background.

It places just one small question between parent and child.

For example:

“What sound felt comfortable today?”

“What would you like to do together in the living room tonight?”

“What can we look forward to after putting the phone down tomorrow?”

That is enough.

After that, the parent and child can speak at their own pace.

HAKONE AI does not control the conversation.

It does not force an answer.

It does not take away the open space of the family.

It simply places a small cue that helps the family return from endless scrolling to a living-room conversation.

For me, HAKONE AI is not simply an app.

It is something I wanted to hand to my daughter together with her first smartphone.

A child we had waited for through many long years.

It is not restriction.

It is not surveillance.

It is the practice of stopping by oneself.

The practice of stepping a little away from the screen.

The practice of returning to family conversation.

Children will live with technology in the age ahead.

That means parents, too, need a new way of raising children in a digital world.

So that the living room does not become merely a place people pass through.

So that it can remain the most comfortable place for the family.

So that instead of taking the smartphone away, parents and children can practice pausing together in their own rhythm.

HAKONE AI was born to support that small home practice.

Note

This story is shared as the founder’s personal background and the origin of the design philosophy behind HAKONE AI.

HAKONE AI is not a medical, therapeutic, diagnostic, or emergency service.

HAKONE AI does not guarantee specific results, behavior change, screen-time reduction, emotional change, academic outcomes, health outcomes, or family outcomes.

It is a private AI service for families, designed to support parent-child dialogue, household rhythm, and a home practice for stepping away from endless scrolling.