Most devices and gaming consoles aren't designed around movement. Or in-person connection. They're designed around staring at a screen, potentially with the presence of avatars/friends.

Jorge Fino is VP, Design at Nex and their Playground device is designed very differently. I talked to him after spending a few months with the Nex Playground.

The commercial story is impressive — 5,000 units in 2023, rising to about 800k last year and outselling the Xbox during Black Friday week. Maybe more impressive: Nex is designing for a real cultural conversation about screens and kids and is one of TIME's 100 most influential companies of 2026.

Fino had me thinking about my own choices, even helping me see a new perspective on my kids’ iPad usage. He helped me recognize what my kids are getting from devices and it spurred me to look for other ways to offer that. And, he shared how he thinks about technology and his family.

I previously spoke with Nicole Rouillac about the Playground and the role of good design in parents’ lives. Fino shared even more and some of his thinking helped me realize why I like the Playground so much.

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast apps:

I loved talking to Jorge and think the Playground is genuinely brilliant. I can feel the intention the team put into each part of it. Some of what stands out to me:

The Nex team didn't want to teach anyone controls. The whole premise was gestures people already have. Jorge, on movement:

"We leverage a lot of what's naturally intuitive. We remember what it was like to shoot a bow and arrow like Robin Hood, or wave a wand around like a magician, or shoot a shot like a basketball player. We know what those gestures are."

The alternative is what most motion games do — take a D-pad and map it onto your body. He's clear about why that fails:

"It's less satisfying when it's just simply mapping controls to your body. It's really allowing you to get more expressive with gameplay by using your body."

Jorge's team played pickup basketball together on Fridays and he credits it for how the Playground was designed: "The most fun parts were the moments in between when you're not actually playing the game. The chatter, the banter — it was just as fun as the game itself."

The space around the game and the feeling after.

I noticed this in my own experience with the Playground. The parts I remember are my daughter pulling her cousin in to play the next round and the Bluey cooking game where we were both chopping and laughing even after we finished. None of that was the game itself.

A kid on an iPad is invisible. Whatever's happening is private, somewhere else, on a small screen.

Someone moving around a living room game is a spectacle. Jorge describes what happens: "When you get a group of people together and you present them with a challenge that seems fairly simple but you somehow can't solve it, you get others around you thinking, well, I could do that. Why can't they do that? So this kind of natural competitive desire to demonstrate that it's possible — that participation suddenly invites what you'd traditionally call a multiplayer but cooperative event."

Other people don't have to get specifically invited to play. They just see something and want in. That's the living room doing what the living room is supposed to do.

Not every game is the same ask for your body. Jorge's team thoughtfully labeled them and created a range.

"We have a variety of experiences that are, if you could call it like a “sweat scale.” Some are really high in sweat scale, and some that are not. You want to find those kinds of experiences that resonate, whether it's an IP you love or there's some kind of motion that feels really fun."

A game like bowling is different from Hungry Hippos, which is different than Starri. All demand different amounts of movement, with some feeling suspiciously like exercise or dancing.

It’s worth noting there are real fitness courses available, but I haven’t dug into any of those.

Jorge doesn't think screens are the problem.

"I don't even see screens or technology as the source of any problem. You go back to the 17th century — a prolific writer or an impassioned artist who spends hours sitting. No one would look at that in a negative way."

His kids make videos, music, and art on screens. To him, these are all tools to be more human and expressive. Instead, he was designing against what he called "infinite access to the local candy shop." He’s describing feeds with content that just keeps on going and potentially even autoplays.

A game that ends is a different object than that. There’s a shape to it, and you’re moving your body instead of sitting still.

Jorge's told me privacy was the first design constraint before anything got built — the magnetic camera cover (aka the monocle) is that principle made physical and it’s something I noticed right away. Multiplayer features coming soon are being built the same way, parent-controlled by default.

The bigger thing I keep coming back to is simpler: Most devices are designed to encourage passive consumption, but the Playground is active. And, maybe more importantly, playing together to create connection is exactly the kind of thing many of us want to encourage. Sign me up for a device designed for that.

I reviewed the Nex Playground in February — read that here. You can learn more about the Playground here.