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As an immigrant father of 2 small children, living in Germany for the past few years, I have found that Germany has some real "hidden champions" amongst the tec

As an immigrant father of 2 small children, living in Germany for the past few years, I have found that Germany has some real "hidden champions" amongst the tech-enabled learning products space. This Tip-toi product and associated ecosystem is one of them, and another is Tonies, which is a kind of audio player in a nice cushioned box that uses cartoon-like figures to choose which audio books to play.

joezydeco 2y ago
I just saw these Tonies at Target (USA) last night, it looks like that store got the exclusive distribution rights for the US. $99 for the starter box? Wow.
peepee1982 2y ago
I am a father of three small ones in Austria. The Tonies are cute, but I find them just so frivolously expensive! My children loved to listen on audio books on CDs (can be rented from libraries or bought for cheap) or on an old 1st gen iPod.
- ce4 2y ago
  I got ours all used in bundles. The box itself is rather repairable (broken silicone ears, dead sd card, dead battery) and there are sometimes very good deals on Kleinanzeigen classified ads. Also what helps: resale value is great, so after the Tonies have had their time and your kids become older... just sell them off.
- bonzog 2y ago
  The thing I dislike most about Tonies is that they don't licence the original recordings for lots of the movie/TV themed characters. They licence the songs and then record them in-house and goodness me some of them are disappointing if you are familiar with the real soundtracks. The Moana one has the same two singers doing impressions of every character.
- tjungblut 2y ago
  Get a flipper, you can simply download and emulate all of them
- cjrp 2y ago
  We got a Yoto instead; uses NFC cards and you can record your own easily.
  - smokeydoe 2y ago
    I can vouch for the Yoto. We make our own cards and update them with new books and music whenever we want. You can add a custom icon that displays for each track.
- matttproud 2y ago
  Father of children in Switzerland: You might want to check out https://www.hoerbert.com https://www.hoerbert.com. This is a remarkably well-built, low-tech alternative. It is somewhat primitive, but the company seems willing to indulge customers who are technically inclined. As an adjacent thought on the Hörbert device: Since we live very far away from family (transatlantic flight), we decided to have our relatives record themselves reading books for our kids. They shared the audio files over Google Drive, and we could load up the audio files onto the Hörbert device so that our kids could listen to their custom audio books whenever they wanted. It provided a nice way to help the kids feel connected with the grandparents and such. With the Hörbert, all that involved was ejecting the SDK card and amending its contents on a normal computer.
- niemandhier 2y ago
  Check your local library, ours has dozens of these tonnes.
- Xylakant 2y ago
  Time to advertise the Phoniebox https://phoniebox.de/ https://phoniebox.de/, building you own Tonie clone with NFC chips and a raspberry pie. (some assembly required)
  - peepee1982 2y ago
    That's great! I was looking for something like this when my oldest was around three. He's ten now, my youngest is three. I might build this with my children together.
- Slartie 2y ago
  We have the "Jooki Box" in use since its inception (the version before the current one), and it's a pretty good substitute. Allows to connect figurines to Spotify playlists, so if you have a Spotify Family subscription, you have a huge number of songs and audiobooks for kids at your fingertips with no additional cost. The original box itself was way more expensive than the Toniebox, like double the price, but I think they've made it considerably cheaper when they released the second hardware version of it. And the original box still works until today, continues to be supported by their app and has already been built in a very sturdy way (I've opened it up once to add magnets inside, so the figurines stick on it, which they normally don't do - that's the one thing the Toniebox people got right).
  - cojo 2y ago
    It seems the company behind this product has gone out of business and the product itself is no longer sold (their e-commerce site is still up, but the shop is empty)? Which is a bummer, as I went looking after your comment - Toniebox is great but I agree it feels overpriced on the content side (perhaps it isn’t, if their competitor couldn’t make the business model work…) https://old.reddit.com/r/jooki/comments/1eltdcm/muuselabs_has_gone_bankrupt/ https://old.reddit.com/r/jooki/comments/1eltdcm/muuselabs_ha...
weinzierl 2y ago
Playmobil fits the bill as well. When I was a kid Playmobil and Lego were similarly popular and it was only much later that I learned that Lego is known everywhere but Playmobil is not. Playmobil is not as versatile as Lego but in my experience it is much better suited for outdoor play. A more hidden champion is Ankersteine. I have one of their construction kits which is in my family probably since around 1885 and these kits are still produced today.
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  There is also fischertechnik, how popular is it outside of Germany? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik
  - qurashee 2y ago
    Not a good sample but I've lived in three European countries with my kids and I've never come across them before.
  - weinzierl 2y ago
    How could I forget to mention fischertechnik. It was the third member of the three most popular toys in my childhood, next to Playmobil and Lego. Other than Playmobil and Lego I have not seen toy fischertechnik for years, but I occasionally recognize their non-toy fixings. Fischer was the most prolific German inventor with 570 patents, who amongst other things invented the plastic wall plug.
  - ralfd 2y ago
    The company website is almost a parody of the stereotype of serious German-ness. It is not a toy, no it is a serious learning material, so you can buy a 10000 Euro set to understand how an integrated factory is working: https://www.fischertechnik.de/de-de/produkte/industrie-und-hochschulen https://www.fischertechnik.de/de-de/produkte/industrie-und-h... There is a „toy“ section for children, but it is to learn about electricity or renewable energy, and I think the real customer of the page are not the depicted children, but the papa with an engineering degree.
- 2y ago
arlcode 2y ago
There was an interesting reverse engineering talk about tonieboxes on last years chaos communication congress [1] It's in german and I can't speak to the quality of the english translation which is available [1] https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineering https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineeri...

joezydeco 2y ago

I just saw these Tonies at Target (USA) last night, it looks like that store got the exclusive distribution rights for the US. $99 for the starter box? Wow.

peepee1982 2y ago

I am a father of three small ones in Austria. The Tonies are cute, but I find them just so frivolously expensive! My children loved to listen on audio books on CDs (can be rented from libraries or bought for cheap) or on an old 1st gen iPod.

ce4 2y ago
I got ours all used in bundles. The box itself is rather repairable (broken silicone ears, dead sd card, dead battery) and there are sometimes very good deals on Kleinanzeigen classified ads. Also what helps: resale value is great, so after the Tonies have had their time and your kids become older... just sell them off.
bonzog 2y ago
The thing I dislike most about Tonies is that they don't licence the original recordings for lots of the movie/TV themed characters. They licence the songs and then record them in-house and goodness me some of them are disappointing if you are familiar with the real soundtracks. The Moana one has the same two singers doing impressions of every character.
tjungblut 2y ago
Get a flipper, you can simply download and emulate all of them
cjrp 2y ago
We got a Yoto instead; uses NFC cards and you can record your own easily.
- smokeydoe 2y ago
  I can vouch for the Yoto. We make our own cards and update them with new books and music whenever we want. You can add a custom icon that displays for each track.
matttproud 2y ago
Father of children in Switzerland: You might want to check out https://www.hoerbert.com https://www.hoerbert.com. This is a remarkably well-built, low-tech alternative. It is somewhat primitive, but the company seems willing to indulge customers who are technically inclined. As an adjacent thought on the Hörbert device: Since we live very far away from family (transatlantic flight), we decided to have our relatives record themselves reading books for our kids. They shared the audio files over Google Drive, and we could load up the audio files onto the Hörbert device so that our kids could listen to their custom audio books whenever they wanted. It provided a nice way to help the kids feel connected with the grandparents and such. With the Hörbert, all that involved was ejecting the SDK card and amending its contents on a normal computer.
niemandhier 2y ago
Check your local library, ours has dozens of these tonnes.
Xylakant 2y ago
Time to advertise the Phoniebox https://phoniebox.de/ https://phoniebox.de/, building you own Tonie clone with NFC chips and a raspberry pie. (some assembly required)
- peepee1982 2y ago
  That's great! I was looking for something like this when my oldest was around three. He's ten now, my youngest is three. I might build this with my children together.
Slartie 2y ago
We have the "Jooki Box" in use since its inception (the version before the current one), and it's a pretty good substitute. Allows to connect figurines to Spotify playlists, so if you have a Spotify Family subscription, you have a huge number of songs and audiobooks for kids at your fingertips with no additional cost. The original box itself was way more expensive than the Toniebox, like double the price, but I think they've made it considerably cheaper when they released the second hardware version of it. And the original box still works until today, continues to be supported by their app and has already been built in a very sturdy way (I've opened it up once to add magnets inside, so the figurines stick on it, which they normally don't do - that's the one thing the Toniebox people got right).
- cojo 2y ago
  It seems the company behind this product has gone out of business and the product itself is no longer sold (their e-commerce site is still up, but the shop is empty)? Which is a bummer, as I went looking after your comment - Toniebox is great but I agree it feels overpriced on the content side (perhaps it isn’t, if their competitor couldn’t make the business model work…) https://old.reddit.com/r/jooki/comments/1eltdcm/muuselabs_has_gone_bankrupt/ https://old.reddit.com/r/jooki/comments/1eltdcm/muuselabs_ha...

weinzierl 2y ago

Playmobil fits the bill as well. When I was a kid Playmobil and Lego were similarly popular and it was only much later that I learned that Lego is known everywhere but Playmobil is not. Playmobil is not as versatile as Lego but in my experience it is much better suited for outdoor play. A more hidden champion is Ankersteine. I have one of their construction kits which is in my family probably since around 1885 and these kits are still produced today.

SushiHippie 2y ago
There is also fischertechnik, how popular is it outside of Germany? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik
- qurashee 2y ago
  Not a good sample but I've lived in three European countries with my kids and I've never come across them before.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  How could I forget to mention fischertechnik. It was the third member of the three most popular toys in my childhood, next to Playmobil and Lego. Other than Playmobil and Lego I have not seen toy fischertechnik for years, but I occasionally recognize their non-toy fixings. Fischer was the most prolific German inventor with 570 patents, who amongst other things invented the plastic wall plug.
- ralfd 2y ago
  The company website is almost a parody of the stereotype of serious German-ness. It is not a toy, no it is a serious learning material, so you can buy a 10000 Euro set to understand how an integrated factory is working: https://www.fischertechnik.de/de-de/produkte/industrie-und-hochschulen https://www.fischertechnik.de/de-de/produkte/industrie-und-h... There is a „toy“ section for children, but it is to learn about electricity or renewable energy, and I think the real customer of the page are not the depicted children, but the papa with an engineering degree.
2y ago

arlcode 2y ago

There was an interesting reverse engineering talk about tonieboxes on last years chaos communication congress [1] It's in german and I can't speak to the quality of the english translation which is available [1] https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineering https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineeri...