Toymail: Family voice chat

I like the toy and the thought of my kids being able to send me voicemails while I’m away, but the one problem I have is the app is not notifying me that I have a new message...I have went to settings in my phone and all notifications are on...and looked at settings in the app and for some reason the notifications do not show until I open the app...it defeats the whole purpose of the toy in my opinion...I shouldn’t have to open the app every hour to see if I have a message. I also find it takes like 5-10 minutes for a message to get to me even when my phone is right next to the toy. If the notifications worked I would of gave it 4 stars

My kids do love their talkies, however, the team missed its mark in a few markets. This is a great toy to keep kids and jet setters connected, but they missed the mark for divorcées. There is no way to silence the talkies completely. In fact, the only way to quiet them is to do it through the cloud. Volume options are high, medium and low. No off. Plus if they are being transferred between houses using school as a medium, you will have to turn off every feature before sending the talkies as they will keep spouting jokes, trivia, etc. But far and away, the WORST thing about the talkies is setup. It took 9 tries, 2 router reboots, a phone reset, and a partridge in a pear tree to finally get it paired to my network/phone. It uses light bursts from the phone/iPad/tablet screen to pair it to the network by placing the base unit on the screen. I understand this as a security measure, and it registers the device to your mobile device at the same time, but this process has to be done with each network you want to join too. So, for example, if you want the kids to be able to take them back and forth from your ex’s, you will have to convince your ex to allow you to connect to their WiFi, pair devices etc. This will also be the case for any other network they want to join. By the way, these ONLY work on WiFi. Otherwise, the kids love them, so still a decent, if limited device.

We received the talkie shortly after they started mass production. In the beginning, it was a great toy. Turned on and recorded with ease, sent messages without a problem, and stayed connected to my phone and WiFi without issue. My kids loved the voice magic and gently tossing it to make it say weeeee! After a few updates,however, it started to mess up. Within about 6 months, I had to reconnect it to my WiFi every time we tried to use it. This process deleted all messages off the toy and took several minutes. It also started draining batteries, sometimes lasting only a day or two on a fresh set of Duracells. Needless to say, the kids quit playing with it. We now have another kid young enough to enjoy it, so I pulled it out and reconnected it to the phone. After downloading the app, I noticed the extra features are now paid. I understand making money, but as much as this thing cost me initially, and how much it continues to cost me in frequent battery changes, I just can’t see spending that much money on a subscription for a few push notifications and voice magic which used to be included in the toy. My kids are disappointed that it doesn’t copy them anymore but I’m just not paying $3 a month for a voice changer.