Dino - Kids Cognitive Electronic Learning Toy

Ok, so I'm in IT and maybe my expectations are too high after enjoying Amazon Echo/Alexa...but this product unfortunately really fails to even come close to delivering. I blame it all on the software.Cons: Design of the item is awesome, it's a pleasure to hold and clearly adorable. The plastic/rubber body is soft to the touch and my kids were super excited to hold and interact with it (at first). For $99 my initial impression was this was clearly worth the money. The placement of the speaker/mic as well as the 'light up mouth' all shows this item was designed by someone with experience dealing with young children and quality product....that's about where it all falls apart...once you turn it on and connect it to the WIFI, the disappointment begins. Connecting it to my home wifi was relatively straight forward, no more frustrating than dealing with any other number of wifi connected devices. The App made sense and was easy enough to operate.Once connnected to the WIFI you start to begin to interact with it, here are some of the flaws:1) the voice is CREEPY...something a little bit more soothing would probably make more sense, I get it's a dinosaur, but it doesn't need to sound like a zombie.2) the software doesn't handle unexpected interaction well. considering not all children follow instructions well and hit the button at the moment it's expected...(or let go AFTER they are done speaking) if you hit the button and it doesn't understand you or relate the command to the exercise, it starts to behave oddly. Also, this thing had a hard time understanding my 5 year old, so I started to speak to it, and I had the same experience (can't blame it on the kid). Had it go into weird loops or repeat itself constantly because of this on more than one occassion.3) (the biggest reason we returned it)....for whatever reason the voice was sometime's choppy or fade in and out (skip words when it was telling a story) etc....not sure if this is a WIFI issue or not, tryed to determine if it was, but it happened consistently enough in most scenarios, that I'm confident it's not my WIFI.Overall...I would steer clear...if Amazon built Alexa in this device (think Amazon TAP); this would be worth double the price for a kid-friendly executed device...

As a Dino owner, I can tell you that at first we also had problems getting it connected (we bought into the Kickstart program). But since the slew of updates that have been done, this toy is now so easy to set up and use. My husband (who is an IT professional) was shocked when he went to reboot it so we could start from scratch and realized how much had changed.Now our 5 year old (the one we bought the Dino for) can go grab him, turn him on, and start playing without any trouble.I get updates weekly updates about the Dino, which include updates on the things is "learned", like songs, games, and stories. One of our favorites right now is the story about the sad flute. The amount of new items that the Dino knows (games, songs, stories...) is leaps and bounds from the original amount. And it hasn't even been a full year.Have we had problems? Yes. Are they being fixed through the wireless updates? Yes. The voice recognition has gotten much better. We still have some problems, but that's more on my son than the Dino (even I have trouble following him from time to time).We saw the potential in this product from the start. That's why we backed it. The best part is that, like technology, it's constantly being updated, constantly changing, and the company is listening to its customers to try and make this the best product it can.That is the reason why I absolutely love this toy.

A cool toy that would have been awesome except for terrible support. Now, no longer supported, so a very expensive paperweight.

Not working. Dino appears to hook up to internet? but then lights up and has inaudible, choppy, fraction of a second words or sounds. Tried at two different homes on two different wifi networks. Very Sad, because it is the one gift my daughter wanted for Christmas and Santa brought it. Considering the last 10+ Reviews are all 1 star, most of them ON Christmas, this company has a major issue on their hands and how they respond in the next few days will determine their fate. I have an email in and am hoping this can be fixed or successfully replaced before I have to return.Update 12/26 : Tried late last night before going to bed and it defintely connected to network and was slightly better but still choppy. Woke up early this morning and appears to be working like it's supposed to. Very strange. Did it update? Are all the dinos connected to the same site and all the use on Christmas crashed it? I will update further after a full day of use12/26 1:35pm Contacted company on Facebook and received the following response:"If your Dino's response and/or audio is choppy, this is due to the high volume of traffic that our servers are currently experiencing. Our engineers are working diligently to have the issue resolved as soon as possible. Your patience is greatly appreciated and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."12/28 Product up and running well. Kids like it although I wish the voice of the dino could go louder and was easier to understand