Toniebox

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Toniebox with toy figure

Toniebox is a cube-shaped sound player designed for children that is very easy to use. The device has been sold by Boxine GmbH since 2016.

function

The device works without a direct sound carrier. Audio content such as music or radio plays are loaded from the manufacturer's servers on the Internet and activated symbolically using special characters, called Tonie . The box contains a battery that can be charged via a base plate.

Each figure contains a NXP brand near-field communication chip in the iso15693 ICODE SLIX-L standard, which plays the assigned audio when it comes into contact with the box. For example, if a special Bibi Blocksberg figure is placed on the device, the story that matches this figure is played. The content is loaded into the box before it is played for the first time via WLAN (limited to the 2.4 GHz band). Apart from a volume control, the box contains no control elements. By tilting it sideways, it can be rewound forwards and backwards. A magnet embedded in the figure prevents the figure from detaching too easily from the box when the winding function is used or the box is being transported. The audio storage capacity of the box is 400–500 hours and the battery life is around 7 hours.

Audio offer

The main target group is children aged two to eight. With over 200 different (as of April 2020) Tonie figures, children's songs, radio plays and audio books in particular can be played. In addition to German-language children's book classics such as Das Sams , Conni , Benjamin Blümchen , Der Räuber Hotzenplotz or Der kleine Prinz are z. B. also audio editions of the series What is what available. Cooperation partners have been Die Playmos and Disney since 2019 .

Some characters (creative tonies) can be filled with any content, up to a maximum of 90 minutes. To do this, the pieces are first copied to the manufacturer's server using a smartphone or web browser, from where they can then be loaded onto the Toniebox using the creative Tonies.

Manufacturing

The hard rubber figures are made in Tunisia , the Toniebox itself is made in China .

success

After the two founders Patric Faßbender and Marcus Stahl approached publishers until 2017 to acquire licenses, the company received inquiries from the publishers themselves from 2018 onwards. Sales figures increased disproportionately each year, which is why there were delivery bottlenecks at Christmas in 2017 and 2018 came and the box and many figures were sold out. While the founders sold 30,000 boxes in 2016, the figure was 148,000 in 2017. According to the company's own information (as of Dec. 2018), around 600,000 boxes and 2.7 million figures were sold in 2018.

In 2016 the Toniebox received the Red Dot Design Award . The German Design Award and the iF Design Award followed in 2017 . In 2019 Boxine received the German Entrepreneur Award in the category of climbers .

The Tonieboxes are now also available in Great Britain and Ireland. The market entry in the USA is planned for the Christmas business year 2020.

criticism

The Toniebox's simple operating concept is widely praised.

The high purchase costs of the box and the figures are criticized. In addition, there are several concerns regarding data protection: In order to be able to use the device, you have to log in with your email address and create an account for the Tonie Cloud (manufacturer's Internet server). Using the Toniebox without the Tonie Cloud is practically impossible. In addition, every operating step is recorded and the Toniebox has to be re-registered with each new WLAN, which theoretically enables monitoring by the manufacturer. The use of the data for advertising purposes must be explicitly contradicted. The dependency on the manufacturer's cloud also has the disadvantage that the device becomes useless if the manufacturer goes bankrupt, which is not the case with conventional playback devices.

In a comparison of various children's music boxes by Stiftung Warentest, the Toniebox was rated 3.0 (“satisfactory”). The test winner was the Hörbert device (1.8, “good”).

Due to various restrictions of commercial jukeboxes like the Toniebox as well as the competitors Hörbert, Tigerbox, Jooki, Qleek-Box and Dog Box, different building instructions for free alternatives were developed and published on the Internet.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b New license partner for the Tonies - Playmobil comes on the box. In: Börsenblatt . January 10, 2019, accessed April 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Milena Hassenkamp: Toniebox: No more scratched Conni CDs. In: Zeit Online . March 1, 2018, accessed April 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Aaron Clamann: Toniebox: Jim button figure does not appear because of the racism debate. In: Berliner Morgenpost . November 13, 2018, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Gambrius: Inside Tonie Figurine. In: Gambrius Tech Blog. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  5. ↑ The Toniebox is a digital cassette recorder for children (and parents) . In: Wired . Condé Nast, March 2017, ISSN 1059-1028, ( online [accessed March 15, 2018]).  
  6. ↑ a b c Christian Schwalb: Boxine Toniebox in the test. In: Chip Online . January 10, 2020, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b c Christoph Schroeter: Toniebox - radio play cubes with ears. In: RP Online . November 19, 2019, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  8. ↑ How good are playback devices for children's music and radio plays? In: MDR Jump. December 11, 2019, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Disney heroes for the Toniebox. In: Börsenblatt . January 29, 2019, accessed April 26, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Software update for the Toniebox. In: private blog daddydoes.de. March 6, 2017, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  11. ↑ a b WheezyBox 2.0 (alternative Toniebox). In: private blog daddydoes.de. April 18, 2019, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Christoph Borschel: Toniebox inventor from Düsseldorf: "We would not have expected this success ourselves". December 17, 2018, accessed December 21, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Tonies win the 2019 Founder's Prize . July 3, 2019, accessed on January 30, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Interview with Patric Faßbender: We want to start in the USA in 2020. In: Rheinische Post , December 7, 2019, p. B1.
  15. ↑ a b Kay Kaßbohm: Music box for children in the test: Winner of the Stiftung Warentest. In: Chip Online . June 25, 2020, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  16. ↑ a b Toniebox: Child-friendly operating concept - and data protection? , kuketz-blog.de, January 7, 2019, accessed on August 8, 2020.
  17. ↑ Elisabeth von Sydow: Toniebox: Security and Privacy - all information. In: Chip Online . January 28, 2019, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Weekend project: Contactless music box for children. In: iphone-ticker.de. February 23, 2018, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Self-made Phoniebox / Jukebox 4 Kids. In: private blog splittscheid.de. October 28, 2018, accessed August 9, 2020 .