ROYBi Robot: World's First Smart Toy Robot in Language Learning & STEM Skills

My boys love Roybi! They especially love the responses he gives when they turn him upside down. I love how easy it is to get the lessons downloaded on the App, and the little bite sized Chinese lessons are short enough that my boys don’t lose attention, while still teaching them enough new words per lesson to be worth it. They’re also short enough that repeating them for review doesn’t bore my kids. Having the words spoken by a native speaker of Standard Mandarin is also very important.The battery life of Roybi is also fantastic! He got put aside while we were gone for the Holidays, and after a month, still had plenty of battery!

Good things:- a lot of contents and duration of each is short enough for toddlers before they lose interest.- contents are easily accessible. Just press a hidden button then the class will start.- portable and easy to hold. My kids’ first instinct is to hold it in hands and scream at it.- hidden button.- cute appearance- no touch screen. The kids are supposed to use voice only to interact and not distracted by touch screen or too much things moving on screen.Bad things on hardware and software execution:- you need to wait for a few seconds before the “lip” logo appears so that the robot will start listening. This is a very anti-social training. It will be overly weird to do so during a real human to human interaction.- the lip logo location is awkward.- The mic on my device can’t reliable pick up my voice (I’m an adult). The seller (Roybi) replied and offered help or replacement. I would give the benefit of doubt to Roybi, and that maybe it is just the problem of the robot i received.- when the robot can hear me, it takes some time to understand me. Don’t expect it to be as fast as Alexa.- the robot’s voice is unnatural. It has an obvious synthetic machine voice.- poor screen. The viewable angle is like at most 60 deg I’m afraid. Screen size is ok though and suit for purpose.Privacy concerns:I’m dubious about how much effort Roybi would spend on safeguarding privacy that:- They use Alibaba cloud for AI. Their founder explicitly spoke in an Alibaba cloud ad on YouTube.- use Facebook messenger for live chat support. There are many ways to do live communications but they choose facebook.- facial recognition are probably done not on-device. (At least they haven’t clarified when i asked in the Q&A). So if you opt to use facial recognition for your child, the face is probably sent to the cloud, not to say that the camera is continuously streaming to the cloud for the real-time face recognition to work.Conclusion, good education content, good product design, poor hardware and software execution, uncertain privacy effort (which is a deal breaker for me)

My children have shared that it is an entertaining novelty toy. I've heard them giggling and enjoying it. I think there is tremendous potential with this toy but also a couple drawbacks.It is a little difficult to clearly hear the pronunciation of the words sometimes. I could hear my children struggling to repeat words a few times because they could not really understand the robotic voice.The other drawback is that, at this time, you need a separate email for each robot to work for each child. I haven't navigated this set up yet but was provided with the direction from the company. It would be so much easier to have one profile with multiple kids set up.I purchased language lessons for my kids and am now concerned that I may have to purchase more than one time. For the last day it has also said that it is still downloading the language purchases. I need to look into it further. If the interactive language lessons do not function then in native language this toy feels like it is for a younger child...perhaps 6 and under. The lessons so far have been on material they are already familiar with at 7 and 9. For this reason I also think that I prefer the YOTO Player.Also, it may be helpful for purchaser to know that the robot comes with different color accessories or what my kids call "hat" options. You don't pick a color when you purchase but change the silicone hats. There are three color options.We've only had them a couple of days so will see how it goes from here.

My daughter is extremely interested in learning different languages and this was a perfect gift for her. Not only is she learning Spanish in a fun way, but it also works on teaching her the correct pronunciation of the words. I would highly recommend this product if your child is interested in learning a second language.

I was so excited to get this for my grandkids! It is cute, but then I found out that they each needed their own! Now that I have them, they don’t work unless plugged in AND you need separate accounts for each one. Not sure why the battery life is even a question? It won’t run on battery! They can’t take it with them anywhere or even unplug! Definitely not worth $100!! Such a disappointment!! So, update, there is a button that is under the hat, that you can't see!! WTH?? So, it can be used when unplugged, but it is so difficult to use that the kids can't do it on their own. It is not user friendly! So far they seem to get the same lesson, for science, over and over. With the delay to respond and the fact that it is hard of hearing, it is just too difficult for a child to use! So disappointed!!