Does the Toniebox Live Up to the Hype? One Mom’s Honest Review
In a nutshell:
The Toniebox is a fun, screen-free audio player built to inspire independent play. The adorable tonies toys, toddler-proof padded design and nostalgic childhood story collection impressed me and my preschooler during testing.
Toddlers and screen-free, independent play—is it too good to be true? If you’re a parent of preschool-aged children, you’ve probably heard some buzz on the Toniebox. As a mom of two young children, I know I have. This toy has some big promises: imagination and fun all through an audio experience, with not one lick of screen time. With strong claims like these, I personally tested the Toniebox out with my preschooler and did the investigating myself.
About the Toniebox
- Easy-to-play design
- Toddler-proof padded bumper outside
- Tonies double as fun toys
- Needs a hard whack to change stories
- Limited content for older kids
Toniebox provides a screen-free audio experience for kids and families. All you do is set a special tonies toy on top of the player, and children can immediately listen to their favorite stories and songs. The Toniebox is designed to be simple enough for younger kids to use all on their own, with cute ears to pinch for volume control and tapping the side of the box to change playlists. It’s also ultra-padded, huggable and durable for rough toddler life. And because each tonie toy is an exact replica of their favorite childhood characters, there’s an extra layer of magic with the Toniebox experience.
How do tonies work?
The Toniebox uses little toys called tonies to play audio content. Tonies, which are sold separately, are hard plastic figurines that perfectly fit in the palm of a toddler’s hand, just like many other toys they might play with. Each tonie quickly snaps on top of the Toniebox when it’s near the player’s pad, like a magnet. As soon as your tonie connects with the player, the audio will play. When you lift a tonie off the player, the audio stops. The Toniebox starter kit comes with a free playtime puppy tonie, which has 45 minutes of popular kids’ songs, and additional tonies—including popular kids’ movies and shows, songs, bedtime stories and some educational content, designed for ages 3 to 8—can be purchased as add-on content.
With a special type of tonie called “creative tonies,” you can record your own audio. Creative tonies are essentially blank tonie toys on which you can record up to 90 minutes of your personal recordings. They’re great for capturing bedtime stories from grandparents, parents saying sweet messages or your kid’s favorite songs. You can control this recording seamlessly through the Toniebox parent app. Just open up the app, click record and send the final recording to your creative tonie, all in minutes.
We wanted to experience the Toniebox in action within a real family setting, so we did the following:
- My 3-year-old and I used the Toniebox several times, mixing it into our daily routine. We used the audio player during the day while my daughter played and at night before bed to test it across different scenarios.
- We used the Toniebox with four tonies, including a mix of nostalgic kids’ stories, movies and some songs. My daughter and I also tested the creative tonie feature by recording our family’s voices.
- I then rated the Toniebox across multiple categories—including ease of use, play and entertainment, quality of content, durability, my child’s reaction, value and overall experience—on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst possible score and 10 being the best. Then, we combined my ratings with extensive research by our in-house editorial team to share this full-scale product review.
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Ease of use
Setting up the Toniebox couldn’t be more straightforward. The package comes with a one-pager of instructions, laid out with photos, simple steps and even a scannable QR code (which makes setup ten times easier). After you scan the QR code, you download the Toniebox app, and it takes over from there, walking you through a fast setup. You do have to connect it to WiFi and fully set it up before you can start playing with it, but the whole process takes less than five minutes.
What took an extra minute or two was figuring out how to use the player once it was set up, since there aren’t dials or buttons on it. It’s not very intuitive at first—you definitely need to look up how to use it. Turns out, the two ears on top of the Toniebox are the volume controls, and you pinch them to adjust, while changing tracks in a playlist takes a good tap on the side of the box. In practice though, I found that it really took more of a solid whack. That part took some time for all of us to get used to—the whacking isn’t my favorite part about the Toniebox. You have to whack it really hard, even for an adult. Sometimes, my toddler struggles to hit it just right for the stories to change. And often, the tonies toys fly off when she’s smacking the player. But it’s easy enough once you get the hang of the whack. You can also rewind and fast-forward stories by tilting the Toniebox. That was something we discovered by accident, but helpful and easy for a toddler to do nonetheless.
The really neat part was using the creative tonie voice recorder feature. You get 90 whole minutes to record whatever you want on this special blank tonie toy. You do it all within the parent app, and it sends this audio straight to the tonie when you’re done. My toddler absolutely loved hearing her own voice come through the player. It made her feel so special!
Rating: 9 out of 10
Play and entertainment
From the moment she opened her Toniebox, my toddler has been obsessed with it. The fact that she can put her favorite character toys on top of the player so easily to listen to their stories is the best. She loves turning it on in the background while playing during the day—there’s constant popping on and off of tonies as she shuffles through her favorite audio clips. My daughter also physically plays with the tonies, too—to the point where they are now mixed in with all the other toybox toys.
She listens to her Toniebox almost every single night, and other than the occasional help whacking if she can’t get a story to change, she can use it all on her own. Bedtime has gotten so much more streamlined and easier for me.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Quality of content
Toniebox stories are top-tier quality. They’re a mixture of narrated stories and actual voices from TV shows and movies. Our Nemo tonie, for example, talks us through the Finding Nemo movie and adds in actual voice clips from the film. It’s really neat! I will note that some tonies—like the Finding Nemo one—come with music on them, too. Which isn’t bad, there are just more music tracks than stories on the playlist. I personally think kids crave more of the story content since they can listen to music elsewhere. At least my toddler does—she just skips through all the songs and goes straight to the stories. You can gauge your kid’s preference, and pick your tonies based on whether they’re story- or music-based.
The audio content selection on Toniebox’s website is mainly popular kids’ movies and shows from Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. But some tonies also have lullabies, interactive audio games and popular songs. There are a handful of educational tonies that teach kids about different animals, but the options for education are kind of slim. The tonies selection seems to be geared toward younger kids, which is perfect for us right now. But I do think she would only use her Toniebox for a couple more years and possibly grow out of it before 7 years old unless more educational and older kid content is added.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Durability
Here’s the great news: The Toniebox is extremely durable. The player itself has a built-in padded cover around it, so you don’t need to buy an extra case. It’s like a big bumper pad around the entire box. I can even see it being dropped from kitchen counter height many times and still surviving as new. In my eyes, this thoughtfulness surrounding durability makes it perfect for toddlers.
Even the volume control ears that stick up on top of the player are tough rubber quality. They feel like they won’t get damaged, ever. I’m confident this toy will last through childhood until your kids eventually grow out of it. Not to mention, while the Toniebox itself is not waterproof, the tonies characters are, which is fantastic. I’d be lying if I said my daughter’s tonies haven’t already taken a swim in the bath. Update—they still work!
Rating: 10 out of 10
Child’s reaction
My daughter was so excited to use the Toniebox. When she first opened it, she immediately started playing with all the tonies toys. She brought them to her toybox, joined them with her other toys and played with them all together. The funny part is, this was all before she even knew there were actual stories on them.
She literally screeched when she saw the Tonie figurines of her favorite characters. I can still hear her yell, “It’s Spider-Man!” as clear as day in my head. We also listen to the creative tonie recordings we made all the time, and add family messages to them. Whenever someone new comes over, they get added to the creative tonie. Meanwhile, she even had me help record her favorite Moana song on the creative tonie. It’s neat to see her grasp how this all works and start doing it independently.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Value for money
If you have a younger child who loves classic childhood movies and TV shows and plays with toy figurines, the Toniebox is definitely worth it. The price point matches perfectly with what you get—hours of independent entertainment for your child. Alongside the audio content, the toys are an extra bonus for kids. Seeing my 3-year-old’s big reaction made me so happy. No doubt about it, the Toniebox is worth the price.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Summary
The Toniebox more than proved to be an amazing screen-free player for my preschooler. It has all the trendy Disney movies, popular kids’ TV shows, classic songs and a handful of educational content. The tonies characters themselves are so cute and fun for kids. Honestly, it does take some digging into at first to figure out how to use it. And you do have to whack the box a bit roughly to change stories. But those are just some things to consider, nothing major.
Overall, the durability of the player is unmatched. I don’t ever see the Toniebox breaking or getting damaged—that’s a huge pro for parents! I do think the content is geared more toward younger preschool kids. But it’s okay right now for my 3-year-old for the next few years. Her initial reaction to the Toniebox was priceless, I’d gift it again to her in a heartbeat. Seeing her get so excited to play with her tonies every day makes my heart smile.
Average rating: 9.6 out of 10
About the writer:
Dani Wolfe is a senior marketer and motherhood writer who is newly postpartum with her second child. She’s spent the last four years researching and trying out dozens of toys and products for her kids to lock down what’s best. After first becoming a mom in 2021, she craved advocacy in this space and strives to help other women feel supported through her work. She has a bachelor’s degree in science and a certification in holistic nutrition. Dani lives on Lake Michigan with her husband, 3-year-old daughter and new baby boy.
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