tonies® Toniebox | Review

This post was written in collaboration with tonies® and Tots100.

A bedtime story has been a part of our children's evening routine ever since our eldest Indiana was a baby. Although actually, stories and books in general play such an important part in our three's lives! But despite buying new books and visiting the library regularly, the littles quickly become bored of the stories we have (and I must admit I do get a little bored of reading the same story on repeat too). So when I was asked if I wanted to test out the new tonies® Toniebox, I thought it would be a perfect way to add some fun back into story time!

What is the tonies® Toniebox?
The Toniebox is a super soft children's audio box, that has been designed to give children a fun and interactive way of listening to stories, music, factual content, and even content they can record themselves! All you have to do is place one of the Tonie audio characters on top of the Toniebox and it magically starts playing the content. Such a fun way for children to play and be entertained without the need for screens.

What's in the Box?
We received the Toniebox Starter Set, which is the perfect way to introduce tonies® to your home. Inside the box you get:

- One Toniebox (available in either grey, green, pink, blue, red, or purple).
- A Creative Tonie (in the matching colour to your box). This Tonie allows you to upload and create your own content. It has space for 90 minutes of MP3s, audiobooks or even your own recordings via the app.
- A charging station.
- An easy to follow instruction manual.

As well as the Starter Set we also received two of the super cute Tonie sets - The Little Mermaid and Christmas Songs and Carols. Each came with the Tonie figure as well as a little booklet that had details of the songs and stories included.

How Does it Work?

The Toniebox is designed for children, so is incredibly easy to work and use (with a little help from a grown up to set it up first of course). 

Setting up the Toniebox is really simple and quick. Take everyone out of the box, connect the charging station to power and pop the Toniebox on top (making sure you're within range of your wifi contention and have the password to hand), and then follow the instructions here. Once set up your child simply needs to pop their chosen Tonie on top and the magic begins! Each Tonie has a magic code on the bottom which is how the Toniebox knows what to play - clever right?

The Toniebox also has really simple ways to play too. To turn up the volume you click the bigger 'ear' and therefore to turn down the volume you click the smaller 'ear'. To change tracks you just need to tap the box on the left or right hand side (left skips back and right skips forward), and you also tilt the box to fast-forward or rewind. The Toniebox is really robust so don't worry if your little ones are like mine and very generous with their 'taps'.

Our Review

The Toniebox has been a huge hit in our household! My little ones are 6, 4 and almost 2 and all three of them enjoyed choosing and placing the Tonies on the top and listening to their songs and stories. Of course with it currently being Christmas the Christmas Tonie has been the most popular of all - I'm now regularly greeted by Christmas tunes when I go into their bedroom in the mornings, with all three of them dancing and singing along!

The only slight negative of the Toniebox is the price. Each Tonie retails at around £15, which I know could be a lot to spend for a lot of families. They would be a perfect gift for either a birthday or Christmas though, and I love that with the Creative Tonie you can add up to 90 minutes of your own audio, so you can never really get bored!

I love that the Toniebox is small enough to fit nicely onto their bookshelf without seeming out of place, but while also being robust enough for the littles to carry around. It would be great to bring in the car to take to grandparents as it has up to 7 hours of battery life too. It is such a lovely way to offer screen free story time and fun for little ones this Christmas!