TOVI SCHOOL
A phone-free school day without another job for teachers.
Students lock their phone in their own TOVI pouch in the morning, carry it through the day, and unlock it themselves at a TOVI Station when the day ends. The school never collects, stores or unlocks a phone.
The object
Phone in. Close it. Carry on.
A phone pouch made of soft, flexible neoprene, with a reinforced opening and one steel pin. Nothing to charge, nothing to update, nothing that knows who you are.
How it works
Three steps. That is the whole system.
- 01
Phone in. Lock it.
The pupil places the phone in their own TOVI and closes it.
- 02
Keep it with you.
The pouch stays with the pupil through the day — still theirs, just closed.
- 03
Unlock it yourself at the station.
The pupil opens their TOVI at a fixed self-service station where the school day ends. No teacher is unlocking anything.
What TOVI does not need
- No app
- No account
- No battery
- No tracking
Two ways to run a phone-free school.
Centralised unlocking
- Staff unlock the pouches with handheld openers.
- When many pupils leave at the same time, unlocking becomes a staff-managed task.
- Pupils depend on the opener and the process around it.
- Unlocking belongs to staff — every day.
TOVI
- Pupils lock their own phones.
- Pupils carry them with them all day.
- Pupils unlock them themselves at fixed TOVI Stations.
- Staff are not part of the daily unlocking flow.
TOVI removes unnecessary work from teachers — without removing responsibility from pupils.
TOVI School
A phone-free school without collecting phones.
TOVI School is more than a phone pouch: a TOVI pouch for every pupil, fixed unlocking stations where the day ends, a backup unlocker in every classroom — plus installation and guidance for the rollout.
- Pupils keep their own phones.
- Pupils unlock them themselves — no queues, no unlocking shifts.
- A backup unlocker in every classroom.
- TOVI plans and installs the stations.
TOVI arrives at your school fully installed.
Installation is one-off work that removes daily work. We plan the station placement with the school, deliver the parts and install the system. After that, nobody collects, hands out or unlocks phones — and teachers never touch a screwdriver.
A backup unlocker in every classroom.
If a phone is genuinely needed mid-day, the classroom's own magnetic backup unlocker opens the pouch immediately. It's the exception path — everyday unlocking stays self-service at the fixed TOVI Stations.
The phone doesn't need to leave the network. It needs to stay out of use.
TOVI doesn't block the phone's signal. It doesn't need to. What matters for the school day is that the phone isn't used when it shouldn't be. TOVI makes it easy to follow the agreed routine — deliberate rule-breaking is handled according to the school's own rules.
Implementation comes with it.
The school doesn't have to invent the rollout itself. A phone-free school day only works if every group is on board. That's why TOVI comes with dedicated guidance and materials for each one: school leadership, teachers, pupils and parents.
Tovi is a Finnish word for “a little while” — which is all we are asking for.
TOVI started with a real school-day problem, and a simple physical idea.
CONTACT
Want to see TOVI in person?
We're currently introducing TOVI to Finnish schools. Tell us about your school with the short form — or write to us directly, and a person replies.