Our co-testers have been enjoying their Toniebox for nearly a year; it’s a genius item for any kid’s bedroom. The little ones are especially enamored of the gorgeous, hand-painted figurines which play the songs and stories. With little ears that work as knobs and an impressive selection of stories and songs, the Toniebox promises hours of independent fun for children aged three to seven. Just don't lose the Tonies, or you'll be in trouble. The price tag still hurt, though. Definitely a special occasion gift like a birthday or Christmas. And even then, it takes up a pretty big portion of the gift budget! I was confident my child would like hers though since she’d been exposed to one and loved it. Does the Toniebox come with books? Like my Toniebox review? You might like my Colorable Cardboard Playhouse Review! How much do Tonies cost? In general, they are very comparable—both in functionality, price point, and experience. The differences seem to be in what age the devices are best for.

Tonies - Disney Finding Nemo Audio Tonie | Smyths Toys UK Tonies - Disney Finding Nemo Audio Tonie | Smyths Toys UK

The three-year-old loves the figurines nearly as much as she does listening to the device itself, and regularly makes up imaginary stories starring the characters. The Tonies Disney Starter Bundle provides everything you need to get started: A Toniebox, charging station, an adorable Creative Tonie and four Disney Tonies! The award winning Toniebox is an innovative audio player that provides countless adventures! Specifically designed for children of ages 3+, the Toniebox is the perfect story time companion, providing a whole new world of stories, music and learning.

Cases & Bags

When a child puts a Tonie on top of the Toniebox, it begins playing the songs or stories. The child can pinch the right ear to raise the volume and the left ear to lower it. A really cool feature Toniebox has is a “ creative Tonie.” While Tonies come pre-programmed with songs and stories, creative Tonies have space for up to 90 minutes of custom content. You can record and upload favorite stories, songs, or messages. While the box says this clearly…I did not know what kind of Internet we had! So I thought I was going to have to take it to my mom’s or something to set up, but my husband suggested using his phone’s WIFI hotspot.

Tonies Toniebox Starter Set Audio Speaker for Kids - Purple Tonies Toniebox Starter Set Audio Speaker for Kids - Purple

In the US, there are currently 27 Tonies on sale, with more coming this year (there are over 65 in the UK). You’ll find everything from Julia Donaldson’s classic kids’ stories to Disney hits like Aladdin, Frozen and Finding Nemo. There are also nature sounds and white noise albums to help ready little ones for bed. Most people seem to have an option for both, but we don’t. We have only 5GHz WiFi. 5GHz WiFi is a newer type of Internet that allows for faster speeds, and Toniebox can’t connect to it. This really frustrated me for how expensive this device was.

Toppers

So today we’re talking about the Toniebox, a product I had admittedly never heard of until visiting one of my best friends. Her girls each had a Toniebox, and my daughter thought they were the coolest things! It has speakers and two little cat-like ears. And each “Tonie” is a different character you’re probably familiar with—Disney princesses, Cat in the Hat, Paw Patrol, etc. There are a bunch of them. Here’s everything you need to know about the Toniebox speaker, stories and more. What is the Toniebox? Toniebox markets their product as “an imagination-building, screen-free digital listening experience that plays stories, songs, and more.” It’s a relatively small cube—4.7 inches—that is covered in a nice foam child-proof cover (six colors available). I’ll cut to the chase and say yes—I do think the Toniebox is worth it if you buy in a bundle or catch them on a good sale. Don’t pay full price…wait for a good sale. But there are lots of things that influenced this that I want to talk about in this post. What exactly is a Toniebox?

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While the U.S. story selection is still slim, there are plenty of stories that kids will want to listen to on repeat, like Julia Donaldson classics ( Zog, Room on the Broom and The Gruffalo). These are exactly the kinds of stories kids want to hear 10,000 times in a row - and parents don’t have the energy to keep reciting. With the Toniebox, everyone’s happy. The included Creative Tonie allows you to record 90 minutes of music, audiobooks or your own stories via Toniecloud or the Tonie-App. To help start their adventure straight away – the Creative Tonie is pre-loaded with 1 hour of songs and stories.Relatives and friends can use the Tonie app to communicate with kids by being granted access to the My Tonie account. Once approved, they can record whatever they like for their loved ones to enjoy - a particularly popular feature during this pandemic. Toniebox: Our kids’ verdict This past year of pandemic living has made nearly everyone more reliant on screens… and therefore more desperate than ever for screen-free entertainment. That's particularly true of families, who may be searching for non-screen toys for their youngest members (if they have an educational component, even better). That gave her a great lineup to play with, but it certainly does add up if you’re buying it all on your own. And that brings me to my first complaint about the Toniebox… How much does a Toniebox cost? After a lot of frustration, my husband remembered that he encountered a similar error setting something up a few years ago. The issue ended up being that we have 5GHz Internet, and Toniebox REQUIRES 2.4GHz WiFi to connect. The collaborative content with brands like Disney and Pixar, as well as the fairy tales, is also high quality. Even our older kids (ages eight and 10) have been sneaking off to listen to these. The sound is fantastic, the narrators are expressive and the Disney albums combine songs and stories for the best of both worlds. There’s a lot of great content for younger listeners, like nursery songs and white noise for bedtime and we’re excited about some of the more factual content making its way over to the U.S. Tonies store.

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Looking for an unbiased toniebox review? I bought my own toniebox for my daughter and am sharing my 100% unbiased, unsponsored review of it. Let’s jump in! My Toniebox review…are Tonieboxes worth it? And another source of frustration that wasn’t immediately clear to me—there is no way to manually turn off your Toniebox. If a Tonie’s sequence is finished or if a Tonie is removed from the Toniebox, it will automatically shut off after 10 minutes. 🙂 Toniebox vs. YOTOWe could not figure out what the problem was. Our Toniebox just kept saying, “Uh oh! Search code hedgehog to find out what the error is.” It kept saying it couldn’t connect to the Internet, and we couldn’t figure out why. Before I bought the Toniebox, I did do a bit of Googling to see if there were any alternatives. I came across a lot of comparisons between the Toniebox and the YOTO player. Which is best? Here’s what I gathered in a nutshell. Here’s an unethical life pro tip for you, though. You can really add any compatible audio file…so if you were to, say, know how to extract audio from YouTube videos of people reading stories or songs you like…you could *theoretically* add those. Don’t ask me how I know. 🙂 No, the Toniebox does not currently come with books. That is another complaint I have and a negative for my Toniebox review. I think it would be a really awesome way for them to expand—maybe have different Tonies that can also read books with early readers. Can I use my Toniebox without WiFi?