Designed For Kids

This is the real selling point of the Toybox. This machine has been designed for kids to be able to operate themselves (under supervision, of course) and shouldn’t need any tweaking, modifications, or even a slicer to prepare the 3D models for printing.

For a small person to be able to use this machine, they need a control method they’ll understand. That means there’s an app. Using this app, your child has a few options for the Toybox. They can select an existing model and tell it to print, modify a model already uploaded onto the app and even create something of their own. Then, it’s just a matter of pressing print.

The App

The application for the Toybox is really the core feature of the product. It’s supposed to be simple to search for and then print the items (toys, really) you want and has been designed, of course, to be operated by a small person with limited experience of, well, everything.

Files on the app for toys are arranged into a series of categories and collections such as “Critters” or “Quick Prints” as well as there being a section each for featured designs and the most popular designs. There’s also a system for drawing directly in the app, then sending the doodle to the Toybox to be printed.

For any of this to work, you need a Wi-Fi connection. The Toybox is Wi-Fi enabled so there shouldn’t be any issues here, but if you have patchy internet then there could be potential for some frustration. We haven’t tested the Toybox, and it isn’t immediately clear to us whether or not the printer needs to be tethered to your smartphone to function, but you can use your computer to browse toys online and schedule prints too. Providing that the Toybox servers are up, we assume everything will work just fine. But, we can’t help but wonder, what if the company disappeared one day? Would the printer still function correctly?

With the app forming such an integral part of the usability of this machine, it is absolutely vital that it works as advertised, as it could prove a real headache if it doesn’t. Apps like this, in our experience, can be very hit or miss.

In-app Currency

As with any modern, digital service that has to appeal to children nowadays. There are premium features that can only be obtained using Toybox’s in-app currency, Bolts. You have to buy Bolts separately before spending them, and 1400 of them will set you back around $10. How much that’ll get you is dependent on the cost of the desired “premium” toy. This is the only way to gain access to those premium models, not that they constitute a lot of the overall selection.

At one point in time there were “Play Pack” subscription models, which gave access to more sophisticated toys that needed a bit of putting together and additional, non-printed parts, but at the time of writing, they are not available and there’s no apparent scheduled date for return.

Build Area

Like children, the build volume of the Toybox is really quite small. There’s just 70 x 80 x 90 mm to play with here, but that’s probably okay for the role this printer has to play. Large prints take many hours, and children have but a fraction of the patience of a peckish terrier, meaning that by the time something substantial has printed, they’re unlikely to care anymore and will instead be focused on telling you about a green bus they saw.

It’s a very, very small build area, yes, but you have to assume that this is limited by the patience of children more than anything else. And there is an upside to this too.

Low Weight

The Toybox 3D printer weighs in at around 3 kg, meaning that that’s easy to store and keep out of the way of kids when you don’t want them using it.

Environmentally Respectful?

It’s not exactly environmentally friendly to be printing off tons of plastic toys all the time, but the only plastic you’ll really be using with the Toybox is PLA. It’s made from plants and Toybox will tell you that it’s compostable but that isn’t strictly true, it’s not a biodegradable material and if you pop it in your compost heap at home, not a lot will happen. You need industrial facilities to break this stuff down.

On the upside, PLA is one of the safer filaments to use at home. Now, you probably won’t want to see a PLA object in the mouth of your child all day, and bacteria does build up in 3D printed “pores”, but it’s not as harmful as many other filaments out there.

Uploading and Printing Files

You don’t just have to print from the catalog found on the Toybox app, you can also import files to your Toybox as long as they match the file requirements (they should be STL, OBJ, or G-code), meaning you’re not just limited to the items on the Toybox application.

This is done using the app, by getting into the Creator Space section and importing the relevant file. Once you upload your file to the Toybox app, it is sliced automatically online, and from there you can move it around the print bed, rotate it and scale it just as you would on a slicer such as Cura. After that, you can just press print.