Toymail Talkie - Bitsy a Bat Plush, Yellow Toy

We love our talkie! However, I do feel like it's a bit misleading. I can not get our talkie to notify us of messages without forcing the talkie to check for messages. We have sent dozens of messages and it has never notified us once when one comes through. For that reason, messaging back and forth requires that you continuously press the talkie to check for messages if you are trying to engage in conversation. While it does do everything it says it will do, it isn't like I can message my daughter from the store and ask if she needs anything as the advertisements indicate, because she would have to know a message is coming and know to be checking for messages to get it.I have spoken with tech support and they are very nice. This is a very busy time for them so they weren't exactly super helpful.

Very difficult to get to hook up to wifi. Tried for three hours with no results. Called the company and they were responsive, but toy is very touchy. Overall, cool concept, but seems to still need some product improvement.

Wanted to provide an updated review now that we've had some time to use our Talkie. I originally purchased our Talkie in November and set up was difficult and frustrating. It took countless tries to get it to connect to the wireless at my home and after about 30mins of trying and re-trying I finally got it to work. I packaged it up and wrapped it for Christmas. Fast forward to Christmas morning and unfortunately our Talkie was no longer working as described. It would not send any messages and constantly had to be reconnected to the internet (which is not easy to do when taking the box out of the toy and taking out batteries with a screw driver every time). I spent the next few days sending emails back and forth to the company. They always gave me personalized/non generic responses which was great and helped my patience. Eventually there were no other troubleshooting tips that they could provide me. Our last resort was to have a new one shipped out to me to see if maybe the toy itself was faulty. Well, we received our new one (IN RECORD TIME might I add) and it is working just as it should. The set up was still pretty painful and took numerous tries to get it to connect to the internet. But I've been testing it every other day to make sure it's still connected and so far so good. I agree with previous reviewers that it would be SO nice to have the Talkie be able to connect to multiple WiFi's due to this being a perfect gift for children who do spend a majority of their time at different households. My daughter's father would not be super pumped to connect this to his WiFI everytime she's there so I can talk to her.... and her grandparents would probably have way less patience than me to try and wait for it to finally connect. Overall, the concept of this toy is fantastic and such a wonderful idea. It's a new product and I'm eager to see what updates they will have in the future. The app is kind of difficult to use, especially to find people to add to my child's circle. It also will show that I have 5 notifications when I only have 1 message from my daughter.... not really sure why that happens. Grandma ends up sending multiple cut off messages because it's been difficult for her to figure out how exactly it works. Please keep updating, this toy has the potential for so much more. Thank you for all of your help and I would definitely recommend this product to everyone I know.... Even with the issues I've had it's still such a great way to communicate with the little ones.

I was really excited to get my daughter a toy that would let her keep in touch with her family and friends without screen time. Unfortunately, the buttons didn't quite line up well, so she would have to unzip the pouch and take out the electronic device to use it. On top of the ergonomic issues, setup was a bit of a pain and she and I would both find message notifications would often be delayed. The most use it's gotten was when my two year old got a hold of it and and a market and went to town. A bit of an expense investment for those few minutes of fun. All and all, a major disappointment.

This is a genius product, that fits the need for my family. Our daughter is 8 and really wants a phone or other devices to communicate with our family and friends. We feel she is to young to getting into that just yet. When I saw this product on Shark Tank Friday night I knew it was a safe way for her to get some of the "phone features" that she would be completely in charge of. This product is the first thing I have ever bought from Shark Tank after watching the show since it started so it really spoke to me. It is safe (with the trusted circle list) I know she can control and send safe messages without my complete supervision. It gives her that perfect sense of independence that she craved.I love the bat skin, but also they are coming out with more skins soon (unicorn and bunny to name a few.) I also love that you can just buy the replacement cover when you need it so you do not have to re-buy the brains of the toy again. I felt the app was fairly simple to navigate (we have Android phones.) We easily informed our family how to get set up and start talking. My daughter finds her Talkie easy to operate and loves to send and receive messages. Plus it giggles and snores which is adorable. It has earned one the most coveted spot on her bed next to her other favorite stuffed animals. It brings her joy to hear the message alert and to be able to communicate with family and friends that might not be near us. We have family all over the country and this is a great way to keep in touch. She can also keep in touch with her friends that have "talkies."I am sorry to have read that customer service in other reviews was lacking. I had the complete opposite experience. We bought the toy on Saturday and it arrived from Amazon on Monday. We set it up and played with it all day Monday. Then Tuesday morning a new patch and our toy had a little bug. But I loved working with customer service, Marla was amazing and took all the time I needed and fixed the toy. From start to finish it was a great experience and I could tell they cared. I really could not give Marla more praise if I wanted to. She was a rock star! The customer service team and engineering team were amazing.This product really does fill a gap needed in the market. It is clever and fun. I could not recommend this product more.