Looking for some high-tech toys to make your holiday season even more fun? Toy Insider Senior Editor Ali Mierzejewski stopped by Better Connecticut in New Haven to show off the most innovative new toys and games on the market.For more on the items featured in this segment, check out the product notes below, and for our complete rundown of the best gifts for the holidays, check out our complete holiday gift guide.
LUVABELLA/LUVABEAU (SPIN MASTER)
- Luvabella is a loveable, life-like baby doll that comes in a variety of girl and boy doll options in different ethnicities.
- Children can care, nurture, and play with Luvabella and Luvabeau using the doll’s interactive accessories and pacifier.
- From feeding time with her spoon, play time with her Lamby, to nap time with her bottle, Luvabella will respond with natural reactions. Kids can watch her laugh, blink, purse her lips, and more.
- Feed her with her spoon and she’ll begin to chew and learn new food words.
- Ages: 3+
- MSRP: $99.99
- Available: Amazon, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart
- The Merge Cube is the world’s first holographic object kids can hold in the palm of their hand. Kids can play, learn, and explore in magical new ways.
- Download apps using a tablet or smartphone at www.MergeCube.com, view the cube through your device’s camera, and watch the Merge Cube come to life as it transforms.
- The Merge Cube experience can be upgraded by selecting the optional virtual reality mode and sliding a smartphone into virtual reality goggles to completely immerse yourself in holographic worlds.
- Ages: 10+
- MSRP: $14.99
- Available: Walmart
LIGHTSEEKERS STARTER KIT (TOMY INTERNATIONAL)
- Lightseekers is an action-adventure role playing game built for mobile devices that fuses together fantasy and reality, integrating video games and smart action figures with the latest in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, interactive trading cards and more.
- The mini-computer, known as the FusionCore, is embedded within each action figure and is the “brains” behind the smart connected toys.
- Players can take their experience to another level, adding physical accessories to their figures and scanning trading cards with the Lightseekers game app to customize their gameplay.
- Add smart action figures with interchangeable weapons you can level-up
- Scan augmented reality trading cards that give you special in-game abilities
- Connect motion-controlled flight packs that turn your figure into a game controller
- Ages: 8+
- MSRP: $69.99
- Available: Toys “R” Us
- Aura is a gesture-controlled drone that uses patented Gesturebotics technology powered by LocoRobo.
- The wearable glove controller will have users feeling like superheroes—the drone is controlled by hand motions made while wearing the glove.
- Kids can fly Aura up and down, forward and backward, and even perform tricks such as a sideways flip.
- Aura puts the power in kids’ hands, removing the learning curve of using a joystick controller to pilot their flying robot.
- Ages: 7+
- MSRP: $99.99
- Available: Target, Toys “R” Us, Best Buy
- Laser X is a high-tech game of tag. Blasters feature pinpoint accuracy up to 200 feet—day or night—and invisible infrared beams can go through windows and bounce off walls and mirrors to hit opponents.
- Advanced sensors know when players are blasting, being hit, running, or hiding, and an interactive voice “coach” uses this intel to offer tips and tricks throughout the game.
- All Laser X sets work together. Play one-on-one, in teams, or set your blaster to “rogue.”
- Plug in headphones (not included) and listen to a stereo soundtrack while you play.
- Blasters were designed to NOT look like handguns or rifles and to make futuristic sounds, not the sounds of gunfire.
- Ages: 6+
- MSRP: $49.99
- Available: Target, Toys “R” Us
