What are the best smart toys for kids?

Coding robots, buildable electronics kits, and AR-enhanced playsets teach real skills while being fun. Check age ratings and privacy policies—connected toys…

Coding robots, buildable electronics kits, and AR-enhanced playsets teach real skills while being fun. Check age ratings and privacy policies—connected toys should have strong parental controls and no always-on microphones you can't disable.

What to weigh beyond the fun

A smart toy is really two products: the plaything, and the connected service behind it — the microphone, the app, the company storing your child’s voice. The best picks give children open-ended things to do (build, code, create), and come from makers who treat kids’ data carefully.

How to choose, step by step

1. Start with open-ended play: coding robots, electronics kits, and buildable sets teach real skills and grow with the child, unlike one-trick toys that bore in a week.
2. Use the age rating as a floor, not a target, and check what it genuinely teaches — sequencing, logic, storytelling.
3. Read the privacy policy before it goes on the gift list: what is recorded, where it is stored, whether you can delete it.
4. Set it up with the parent account yourself, and switch off always-on microphones and chat features you do not need.
5. Prefer toys whose core play works without a subscription or account — a toy that goes dumb if the company folds is a poor gift.
6. Join in for the first few sessions. You learn what the toy says and suggests, and kids get more out of it with you in the loop.