Description

This digital audio system consists of the Toniebox, a wifi-speaker, and the Tonies, which are audio characters. Once downloaded, stories and songs are always ready to play.

Each Tonie is hand-painted and has its very own stories to tell and songs to sing. There are prerecorded ones with popular characters like the Gruffalo, and Creative-Tonies on which you can upload up to 90 minutes of your own content. The Toniebox automatically starts when placing a Tonie on top of it. No screens!

The interactive nature of Tonies brings excitement to children and immerses the family in their favourite stories and songs as a wonderful alternative to screen time. With the Creative-Tonies parents, grandparents and other friends or relatives can record and upload own voice messages, stories and songs from wherever they are. In a world where families sometimes live far apart or parents go on longer work trips, this is a child-friendly way to stay connected with loved ones. Especially, for quiet playtimes and bedtimes, listening to audio content instead of watching flickering screens has a calming effect. The portfolio of pre-recorded Tonies is ever-expanding, with great licenses such as Disney joining the collection in Summer 2019. This makes the Tonies a real collectable!

What our testers said

“This is so cool mum, you can just put the tonie on the box and it plays.” – Girl aged 6

“Can I listen to my story box mummy?’ – Boy aged 4

What our experts think

The Toniebox encourages children to become involved in the creative world of storytelling with no screen needed. Our testers did find setting up the Toniebox a little difficult at first as it was very technical and took several goes to set it up correctly. However, the children then found the controls easy and we liked that parents and caregivers have control of the content.

The characters are of excellent quality and easily recognisable. The figures also made the story interactive, for example, one child checked off the features of the Gruffalo as its features were described in the story. This is great for literacy skills, in comparing the spoken words to the character itself. Audio stories also help develop listening skills and help children to focus and engage with others. It is a lovely touch that you can record your own stories onto the characters, meaning children can listen to stories from relatives who live far away or listen to goodnight messages.