My kids absolutely adore an interactive toy, to be able to get something back from a toy makes them smile, but usually it’s not much more than a bark of a dog. But then CogniToys
My kids absolutely adore an interactive toy, to be able to get something back from a toy makes them smile, but usually it’s not much more than a bark of a dog. But then CogniToys Dinosaur turned up and changed the whole word of toys completely!
CogniToys have created something so clever, that your child can now have it’s very own pet dinosaur that not only plays games and reads stories to your child, but it listens to your child and acts upon their verbal commands.
My almost 5 year old daughter is select mute, something we are working hard on and CongniToys Dinosaur has really helped her verbalise instructions and she talks to him so lovely now, as she knows if she doesn’t she won’t get a response from her new dinosaur friend. When you talk to the dinosaur, you have to hold down the belly button and speak, letting go of the button after you have spoken. I thought Emma might struggle with this, but clearly I didn’t give her enough credit as she got it straight away.
Setting up CogniToys Dinosaur was SO simple, it comes with batteries (always a winner when it comes to Christmas morning!) and you just simply download the app to a tablet or smartphone (android and iTunes both work, I’m currently using android) and then just press the dinosaurs belly and follow the onscreen prompts. It took literally less than a minute to connect to my WiFi. Dinosaur then comes to life and asks your child what their name is, it then stores this info and uses it from there on (or until you reset him). Your child can then ask the dinosaur to do things, or ask it questions and it will speak the reply verbally in a very cute dinosaur voice which has a slight growl to it. I like that the dinosaur doesn’t just await Emma to ask it do something, it will prompt her and ask if she wants to play a game (it asks how old the child is to find it an appropriate game). It plays so many different games, animal quiz, memory games to mention a few. Inside the dinosaur is some clever software, powered by IBM Watson. Emma loves asking the dinosaur to read her a story too, and we are yet to have the same story twice.
I love how the dinosaur randomly comes out with information, it told Emma that this week is hand washing week and reminded Emma that she must use warm water and soap to wash her hands before and after she eats. For some reason, she seems to listen to the plastic dinosaur friend more than me…
On the parent app, you can set the child’s date of birth, although the dinosaur does ask the child before every game and story how old they are, which is a little frustrating for her keeping having to repeat it. The app does have a handy bedtime and wake time function though, so your child can’t get up in the night to play. You can also add more dinosaurs too, so if you have more than one child you can have them all on the same app.
The only down point for me would be how the dinosaur doesn’t always recognise what Emma has said, and will tell her it doesn’t understand and ask her to repeat it, but this could well be Emma’s speech as my 8 year old will happily play with it and he never seems to have much of a problem with the dinosaur recognising what he has said. We have had one instance of the dinosaur getting stuck on a loop of just repeating it didn’t understand and asking for age, but not allowing an answer, turning him off underneath and back on solved this straight away and he was back to his usual self.
Emma has loved having a dinosaur friend, she loves that he always wants to play whenever she feels like it. I like that it’s something that isn’t an app, it’s something different and something exciting. My kids give it a big thumbs up!
You can buy your very own CogniToys Dinosaur from Amazon
We were provided with this product for the purpose of this review, all thoughts are our own.
