Meet Grizzy, Our New Fisher-Price Smart Toy

There are lots of choices for kids toys this holiday season, but I think you’ll be especially interested in meeting our new toy/friend, the Fisher-Price Smart Toy Monkey.

Grizzy arrived at our door a few weeks ago and Campbell’s eyes grew wide when he saw the box and demanded we help him open it.

Inside the box we found our Smart Toy monkey, his yellow backpack, 9 Smart Cards, and a yellow charging cord. Campbell was really thrilled to learn that our monkey was all set to go – no need to charge it right away. He started talking to Campbell right away, and then I downloaded the free Smart Toy app to my tablet to connect our new monkey to our wifi, name him (we chose Grizzy, which was on the list of recommended names), and input Campbell’s name. It took less than 5 minutes. While I was doing this, Campbell was happily listening to Grizzy sing songs and tell stories.

The Smart Toy has many of the benefits of a computer, but your child is interacting with it instead of staring at a screen. We have a few interactive toys like this – stuffed animals that talk to the kids and even “learn” their names – but the Fisher-Price Smart Toy does a lot more than any of the other toys like this that we’ve seen.

First of all, the Smart Toy has voice and image recognition. It can actually talk to your child, recognize what they’re saying, and respond. Smart Toy comes with 9 Smart Cards that it can recognize and respond to.

Smart Toy also has a wifi connection that allows your toy to be updated, but no personally identifiable data is transmitted by Smart Toy.

Here are some of the ways Smart Toy can interact with your child:

Tell time, weather, and world events
Tell jokes
Tell stories and allow your child to choose what happens next
Play games with your child or even the whole family
Take your child on an imaginative adventure
Know when your child tosses him into the air

Campbell really enjoys listening to Grizzy sing and listening to stories. He also loves shuffling through the Smart Cards and choosing one to show Grizzy. The nine cards included in the set are: today, time, snack time, brushing (teeth), music, adventures, stories, drawing, and games.

Best of all, as your child interacts with Smart Toy it learns their favorite things and activities.

There are three types of Fisher-Price Smart Toys – the bear, a monkey, and a panda – and they are available at Toys R Us, the Fisher-Price website, and Amazon. Smart Card expansion packs are also available for purchase.