Getting around your Peko Pal

Updated October 3, 2026

Your Peko Pal has no screen — it talks instead. Every button press gets a spoken response or a sound, so children learn their way around by ear. This guide explains what each button does, and how to move between apps.

The buttons at a glance

Power button — a quick press leaves the current app and returns to the main menu. Two quick presses open your shortcut app (see below). Holding it for about two seconds turns the device off.
Direction pad up / down — moves through a list one item at a time, and your Peko Pal says each one. Up goes to the previous item, down to the next.
Direction pad left / right — in the main menu, switches between the sections. Inside an app, adjusts within whatever is currently playing or selected, where the app supports it.
Action button (the big one) — opens what you chose, plays and pauses, talks, records.
Volume buttons — louder and quieter, always, in every app.

Press the power button once and you are in the main menu. Your Peko Pal says which section you are in — "Main menu: Apps" — and then waits.

There are up to three sections, and left/right moves between them in a loop:

Apps — everything installed on the device.
Friends — the people your child can send voice messages to or call.
Lessons — the topics you have set up for them to learn.

A section only exists if there is something in it. A device with no friends set up has no Friends section to land in, so the menu stays as simple as what the device can actually do.

Choosing something

Press the power button once. Whatever was playing stops, and your Peko Pal names the section — "Main menu: Apps".
Press up or down to hear what is in that section, one name at a time — "Stories… Podcasts… Radio…". Press left or right first if you want a different section.
Press the action button to open the one you want.

Two details that matter in daily use:

Arriving in the menu does not name an item, only the section. The cursor is wherever it happened to be left, which is not a choice your child made — so the device does not read it out as though it were.
The action button only opens something after at least one up or down press. Press it straight away and your Peko Pal prompts — "press up and down to choose an app" — instead of opening whatever the cursor was resting on. This exists so a child cannot launch something by accident on the way into the menu.

Nothing opens until the action button is pressed, so your child can listen through the whole list as many times as they like.

Inside an app

Once an app is open, the direction pad belongs to that app, and can no longer switch to a different one:

Up / down changes the item: the episode in Podcasts, the chapter in a story, the station in Radio, the friend on the walkie-talkie, the recording slot in the Recorder. Up is the previous one, down the next.
Left / right adjusts within the current item where the app supports it — skipping back and forward inside a story, the glowlight's color mode, the night light's sound.
The action button stays the "do it" button: play and pause, start and stop, talk.

Each app announces what it's doing as you go, so there's nothing to memorize — press up or down and listen.

The double-tap shortcut

Press the power button twice, quickly, and your Peko Pal jumps straight to one app, wherever your child is: inside another app or in the main menu. It starts as Peko Bot.

To choose a different app, or switch the shortcut off, open the Pal's settings in the Peko Pal app and pick an app under Shortcut, Double-Tap Power. Pick Nothing to switch it off.

Turning it off and on

Off: hold the power button for about two seconds, then let go.
On: press and hold the power button briefly until the logo lights up.

When it turns back on, your Peko Pal reopens the app that was in use when it was switched off, so a bedtime story is never more than a button press away. If your child was only browsing the menu and never opened anything, it comes back to the menu.

Good to know

A quick press of the power button never turns the device off — it only leaves the current app. Turning off always requires the two-second hold.
Pressing the power button while already in the main menu does nothing. The device just waits for a pick.
If the device is ever completely unresponsive, holding the power button for ten seconds forces it off. This is a hardware failsafe and always works.
If the shortcut is set to Nothing, pressing the power button twice quickly does nothing.
Some modes behave differently on purpose: Baby Smash gives every button a fun response (a quick power press still exits it), and during setup the exit press and the shortcut are disabled so pairing isn't interrupted.