8 Cool tech toys for kids

What’s got the cuddliness of a plush toy and the cleverness of a smartphone? It’s Ubooly! This Furby-looking interactive, iPhone/Android-powered toy can converse with a child, play games and tell bedtime stories. An accompanying app can help parents personalize the device so it can know the son’s or daughter’s name, age, favorite color and interests. Ubooly can also recommend new activities to assist the child’s development.

From the designers who brought BB-8, the new “ball” droid from “Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens,” comes “the world’s first app-enabled robotic ball.” Paired with a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet, the Sphero 2.0 rolls around in every direction, offering augmented reality games, having fun with your dog and even learning about maths and programming. Compatible with iOS, Android or Windows, Sphero 2.0 is waterproof and pet-proof.

This build-it-yourself bot can be constructed into 14 different ways, perfect for exploring your kid’s imagination in assembling things. No need to worry about batteries as it runs on solar power. Whether it’s a walking crab or a dog with a wagging tail they’re building, the toy ultimately teaches your brood the basics of robotics.

With these two interactive and cute puppies named Scout and Violet, kids will be able to practice conversation while having a good time. Loaded with storybooks, music, lullabies and interact-and-respond activities, both devices can help children aged 2 to 5 develop a vocabulary, find out about comprehension and become engaged in reading.

It’s never too early to learn some computer programming. Primo, a playset of coloured blocks, aims to teach children aged 4 to 7 the basics on how to code. The kit consists of a friendly robot called Cubetto, a board interface, and some instruction blocks. The idea here is that the child places the blocks in a sequence on the board, a sequence that will determine the direction Cubetto will go. The end result of this playtime is for the youngster to pick up the fundamentals in programming language that is used to operate machines and computers.

Like the adult-size variants from the likes of Apple and Samsung, this smartwatch can play games, take photographs and record video clips. Owners of this nifty timepiece can choose from more than 50 different clock face designs.

Now, family members can tell bedtime stories to the young ones wherever they are in the world. The StoryHome device allows users to record and play their favourite fairytales –– even relaying recording between units. For example, a grandmother can record stories for her grandkids on one device, then the youngsters can listen to it on another. With a Russian doll shape, the machine uses a mobile app and connects to internet via Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

It’s the classic panorama-gazing gizmo –– with a modern-day dosage of immersive virtual reality. Developed thanks to a partnership between Mattel and Google, the View-Master works just like the Google Cardboard by using the power of a smartphone to make children enjoy and explore all kinds of scenes, like a land full of dinosaurs, the moon or one’s own city. According to Mattel, they’ll offer and sell a huge library of classic and new reels for the iconic red viewer, like Star Wars licensed content, for example.