At three years old, a child can press a button. It can also shove a box off the table, tip juice over it, want to take it to bed and gnaw at the corner. That’s why a music box for toddlers has to manage two things at once: be simple enough for a child who can’t read yet, and sturdy enough for a child who tries everything.
The first point is quickly settled: buttons or figures, no screen, no menu, a volume that can’t be turned up indefinitely from the outside. The second decides whether the box lasts three years or ten. From a manufacturer’s point of view, there are five places where children’s devices die. Four of them are loud, one is quiet.
If you know which ones they are, you’ll be able to tell on any product page whether a box was built for the moment of purchase or for the second child. (An overview of the four designs: Music box for children – which is the right one?)
For toddlers at a glance
Table of contents
Music box for children – which one is right for me?
Not every box suits every age. Figure boxes are built for the very youngest, streaming boxes for children who can read and choose. hörbert sits somewhere in between and grows along: a two-year-old presses buttons and hears sounds, a four-year-old finds their favourite song, a six-year-old follows entire audio plays and records their own.
What probably all music boxes for children have in common is that every child is especially fond of their own music box, and that’s why it has to come along everywhere. Mobility is therefore one of the most important points when buying a music box for children. A voice assistant like the Echo Dot Kids sitting on a shelf simply can’t compete.
Over time, usage patterns change: one product might not be fully understood by small children, while for older children the same product may already seem “uncool”.
With hörbert, for example, parents can nicely observe how their child’s motor skills and ability to concentrate develop, how it first listens to funny sounds and presses away at the buttons, how it later finds its favourite song and plays it over and over, or when it’s ready to follow entire audio plays. Since everything is on a single card, the child discovers its hörbert at its own pace, and it’s incredibly exciting to watch how it develops from week to week.
So it’s no wonder that hörbert accompanies a child for many years, going through thick and thin with them, because the child always has both its familiar and its new content right there.
When we launched hörbert in 2011, the wood was a wish: just don’t put even more plastic in the children’s room. By now it’s the feature that most determines the lifespan. Plastic breaks, and a broken plastic part can rarely be repaired. Fabric and foam forgive falls, but not juice. Wood gets dings, but a ding can be sanded out. A box that has a dent after the third fall looks different from one that has a crack after the third fall. The first gets passed on to the second child, the second goes in the bin.
On top of that comes something you won’t find on any data sheet: wood feels different to a small child than plastic does. Warmer, heavier, more trustworthy. Children treat things that feel valuable differently from things that feel like toys. Not always, but more often than you’d think.
With music and audio plays, the child experiences its feelings and adventures together with its music box. The device should deserve the trust the child places in it. For us, durability and repairability are the cornerstones of that kind of trust.
From a manufacturer’s point of view, there are five places where a children’s music box meets an untimely end. Four of them are loud, one is quiet.
Children drop things, spill things and take boxes to bed with them. When buying, don’t just ask whether the box can take a knock, but what happens when it can’t. With wood: sand it down. With plastic: usually nothing – so it gets replaced, and the old device becomes electronic waste. We’d rather repair, and show your child in the process that things don’t get thrown away just because they’ve got a scratch or a dent.
Every rechargeable battery loses capacity, noticeably so after three to four years of daily use. If it’s permanently built in, the box then becomes a device that has to stay plugged in – or simply electronic waste. The EU has recognised this: from 18 February 2027, rechargeable batteries in newly sold devices must be replaceable by the user with commonly available tools, and replacement batteries must remain available for five years after the last sale (Regulation EU 2023/1542).
This doesn’t apply retroactively to devices that are already in children’s rooms today. So check whether you can already get such devices today.
There’s an even simpler way than a manufacturer’s own replacement battery: hörbert contains four completely ordinary AA-size rechargeable batteries, and since the current electronics they can be charged inside the device via USB-C. They last around 35 hours, and when they weaken after years of use, replacing them costs no more than four new rechargeable batteries from a manufacturer of your choice.
A speaker, a button, a socket – if they’re available individually, your box lives on should the worst happen. If not, even a small defect can mean the end. For hörbert there are spare parts in the shop, complete with instructions. And if you contact our service team, we’ll first try to solve the problem with your help at your home. Only if that doesn’t work does hörbert come to our workshop. Quite often our customers order an upgrade at the same time, if one is available and they really want it.
Anything that relies on an app depends on that app still running on the phone of the day after tomorrow. All manufacturers who absolutely need an app for registering, setting up or loading content onto their boxes have to maintain these apps, and older phones eventually fall through the cracks: at some point the new version no longer runs on the old phone. A box without an app doesn’t have this problem: hörbert is set up in the browser, via its own Wi-Fi network that the box creates itself, with any phone, tablet or computer, but without an app. More about this at Music box without Wi-Fi and app.
This is the quiet bit: devices don’t simply break, they age, because new features only ever appear in new devices. But it can be done differently: a hörbert from 2011 received a sleep timer as an add-on module in the years that followed, then a Bluetooth module for two pairs of children’s headphones or for use as a speaker for your mobile. These features then found their way into the new electronics: and yet the current electronics, with operating LED and USB-C charging socket, still fit into every device made since the very first year of production!
Since 2021 we’ve been releasing free firmware updates that have retrofitted internet radio, podcasts and browser-based setup for all hörbert customers. Long-standing customers tell us that their hörbert from back then can do more today than it could when they bought it. None of this appears on a spec sheet, because it doesn’t cost anything at the time of purchase – only later.
The wooden memory card box, Made in Germany. Nine buttons, your own audio stories, microphone, no subscription, no app. Batteries from the supermarket, spare parts in the shop.
from €269 incl. VAT.
Or read on – below you’ll find out why we make hörbert in Germany.
That costs us more, but it has paid off every single time a problem was solved in one phone call instead of three weeks of emails. The specialists at our partner companies are a part of hörbert that isn’t printed on the casing – and sometimes the reason why a device from 2011 can still get spare parts today.
The high degree of manual work that goes into hörbert’s production can only be achieved through close communication with our manufacturers, and it gives our customers a good feeling to keep the value creation within the country.
Three places are enough. If the battery is listed as “integrated” or “permanently installed”, or if nothing is said at all, which usually means the same thing, then the device dies with the battery. Is there a spare parts section in the shop, and does it list individual buttons, speakers, or other components? If not, they don’t exist.
And do take a look at the manufacturer’s blog or news section: does it report on updates for existing devices, or only on new models? That tells you whether your device will still keep up in five years, or be obsolete.
Checklist for the toddler music box
Our hörbert has been enriching our children's everyday lives for a long time now. It's a durable product with an aesthetic and sustainable design, and even when problems do crop up, customers receive quick, helpful and individual suggestions for solving them from the service team. Simply brilliant!
From around three years old, when the box works without the ability to read and without a screen — in other words, with buttons or figures, and depending on motor skills, with cards too. We recommend hörbert from three years of age; the nine buttons each start a fixed playlist that parents set up once.
All music boxes are tested and built with the rough everyday life of a child’s room in mind. Nevertheless, there’s sensitive electronics inside, and the housings can’t become infinitely heavy, even if they’re meant to be unbreakable.
That’s why, for us, repairability is inseparably part of a long service life:
Pay attention to three things: a housing that can be repaired after a fall (wood can be sanded, plastic usually can’t), no detachable small parts, and the availability of spare parts in the manufacturer’s shop, or a repair service provided by the manufacturer.
hörbert has a wooden housing, and offers housing, buttons, speaker and electronics as spare parts.
Every children’s music player should be able to do this nowadays. If one can’t, you’d better keep your hands off it, because then they’ve probably taken all sorts of other shortcuts too, which could harm your child!
With hörbert, at any rate, the following applies: you set the maximum volume in its settings, and your child can’t exceed it on the device itself. Bluetooth headphones made specially for children have their own volume limiter, so the problem of your wired headphones being too loud in combination with your particular player simply can’t arise.
From February 2027, every newly sold device will have to have one.
Today it’s the exception; many figurine and streaming boxes have permanently installed batteries.
hörbert runs on four AA rechargeable batteries that you can easily swap out yourself.
The wooden casing usually shrugs off falls from the table; dents and scratches can be sanded away. If something does break, replacement parts are available in the shop, and our service team will gladly help you out if hörbert needs to come to our workshop.
Yes. The sleep timer or the current electronics with USB-C fit into every hörbert made since 2011. You only need to upgrade a hörbert from 2021 onwards if you absolutely want a battery charging function.
Firmware updates are possible from hörbert 2021 onwards and are always free of charge.
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