Bedtime stories, set up by a grown-up

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The hardest ten minutes of the day

You have read the same book four nights running. You are out of voices for the dragon. It is 7:52 and somebody is still negotiating. Every parent knows the shape of this, and most of the apps that offer to help come with a catch: a feed, an ad, an in-app shop, or a screen that invites a small thumb to wander.

Stories is bre’s answer, and it is deliberately small. It is not a tablet full of videos. It is one screen with stories on it and four big buttons: play, pause, replay and next. A grown-up decides what it does. A child decides which story.

What Stories is

bre makes podcast episodes about whatever you ask, with hosts who talk it through. Stories is the version of that for families. A grown-up types an idea (“a story about a lighthouse keeper and a very small whale”), or a child taps one of bre’s story pictures to ask for a new one, and a short story is written and read aloud by Otis, bre’s storyteller, sometimes with bre beside him as the curious friend. bre’s hosts are AI, and the app says so.

The stories are gentle and curious: made-up tales, and true things told like tales. An octopus has three hearts. A lighthouse has a reason for its stripes. Wonder first, facts second, and a pause now and then so a child can guess what happens next.

What a parent controls

Stories opens from the book button at the top of bre’s home screen, and its settings live with the grown-up, in Settings, under Stories.

• Ages. You set the ages the stories are written for. A story for a three-year-old and a story for a nine-year-old are different stories, in length, in words and in what happens.
• A daily limit. Three, five or ten new stories a day. After that, the stories already made are still there to replay; new ones wait for tomorrow. “One more” has a ceiling you chose, not one you have to enforce at 8pm.
• A PIN. Turn on “Lock with a PIN” and the only way out of Stories is the four-digit code. Without the PIN, a close button leaves. The PIN stays on the phone and is never sent to bre; if you forget it, a code goes to your account’s email address and you choose a new one.

What is not on the screen

This is the part that matters most, so it gets its own list.

• No microphone. Stories has none. A child cannot talk to the app, and the app is not listening.
• No Talk. The conversation features from the rest of bre are not here. Stories is listen-only, on purpose.
• No files, no links out. Nothing to tap that leads anywhere else.
• No ads, and no plans screen. There is nothing to buy from inside Stories, and nothing selling anything.

And bre collects no personal information from a child: no name, no voice, no typing, no location. The grown-up’s account is the only account; the child has none.

Ideas that make good stories

The box takes anything, and some ideas work better than others at bedtime.

• A character and a problem. “A lighthouse keeper who loses her light on the foggiest night.” Otis knows what to do with a problem.
• A true thing, told as a tale. “Why the moon seems to follow the car.” Wonder first, then the fact, then the pause for a guess.
• Something from today. “A story about a child who was nervous about the first day at a new school and found a friend.” Keep names out of it: the story is about a child like yours, not your child, and bre collects nothing about them.
• A request from the back seat. “A dinosaur who is afraid of the dark” is a perfectly good brief. Let them tap the picture or tell you the idea, and type it as they said it.

Shorter beats longer at bedtime. A story that ends while the eyes are still open is one you can follow with “next”; a story that outlasts them is one you will finish alone.

And replay is a feature, not a fallback. Children ask for the same story again because the second hearing is where they get to know it, and the replay button exists for exactly that. The daily limit counts new stories, so the favourite can run as many nights as it needs to.

How a night goes

Teeth brushed, lights low. You open Stories and hand the phone across. A child taps the picture of the whale, and Otis begins. “Now, here’s the amazing part…” The story runs its length, slows at the end the way bedtime stories do, and stops. If the eyes are still open, next. If not, you take the phone back, and the PIN means nothing changed while you were not looking.

It works in the car too. Stories was built for the back seat as much as the bedroom: the same big buttons, the same limit, the same closed screen, and a story that fits the drive to school.

What bre does not do, honestly

Stories is written by AI, every time, for the idea that was typed or tapped. That is what makes it endless, and it is also why the first few are worth listening to yourself. The stories are written to be gentle and bre takes care over what goes into them, and “written by AI” still means you should know what your child is hearing before it becomes a habit.

It is not a replacement for reading together. A phone reading a story is a good thing on the nights you cannot, and it is not the same as your voice. Use it for the fourth night of the dragon book, not instead of the first three.

Stories are in English for now. bre is not in the App Store or Google Play yet, so Stories, like the rest of the app, is something you can join the list for today and use the day it opens.

If you are curious what bre is like for the grown-ups in the house, the guide to learning with podcasts is the place to start, and the topic pages show the kinds of questions people bring to it, from black holes to compound interest. A good many of them started as a question from a child.

Questions people ask

Can my child use Stories without me?

A grown-up sets Stories up and opens it; then a child can tap a story picture and press play, pause, replay or next on their own. With the PIN on, nothing else in bre can be reached from Stories without the code.

What ages is Stories for?

You set the ages the stories are written for in Settings, under Stories. The length, the words and what happens in a story change with the ages you set.

Does Stories listen to my child?

No. Stories has no microphone. There is no Talk, and bre collects no personal information from a child: no name, no voice, no typing, no location.

How many stories a day?

You choose a daily limit of three, five or ten new stories. Stories already made can be replayed any time; new ones wait for the next day.

What if I forget the PIN?

A code is sent to your account’s email address, and you choose a new PIN. The PIN itself stays on the phone and is never sent to bre.

Are the stories written by people?

No. Every story is generated by AI when it is asked for, and read by Otis and bre, who are AI hosts with synthetic voices. bre says so in the app. Listen to the first few yourself, as you would with any new book.

Every bre episode is generated when you ask for it, so it can be wrong or out of date: check anything that matters. These pages are for interest and learning, not medical, financial or legal advice. More about the app on the home page and about bre.