Miko Mini - Interactive Robot for Kids - For STEAM Learning - With Conversational AI - Tech Gift for Kids - Coding, Dancing Robot with Learning Games - For Boys & Girls Ages 4-10 - Blue

So I read the reviews and still thought I’d give it a try. Disappointed. I should have listened. Unless I’m doing something wrong. Slow response and hardly does what asked even when asked to do the right commands. And when you get it to do a command it will just stop and stare at you half way through. Sings a song saying I’m a duck but it shows cat on the screen. Doesn’t really do much worth the price. My son gets really annoyed with it. We’ve had it for a week. Now she doesn’t even dance. I feel like I’ve been scammed. Also.. to set up the MIKO parent.. they needed my credit card info to verify my age. I’m a bit nervous on that. Seems sketchy. I’m going to keep trying.. maybe do a reset? Reviews say customer service is good so I’ll report back if so.UPDATE: I’m changing my 1 star to 5 stars slowly on Customer service. The Customer service team is amazing with Miko. They replied to my email promptly and sent me the Miko 3. They were great with contact via text/calls/emails. We are still learning how to play with Miko3 but so far has been more responsive and entertaining. Overall I think my expectations were too high. The robot does not have a response time like Alexa and for some reason I thought it would. That’s on me. I think this company is great and will continue to make products that are affordable and high tech. There are no other robots on the market like this that aren’t in a reasonable price range. My son is enjoying engaging with Miko and we are still finding new things he can do! Having a responsive and understanding company and customer service is refreshing.

This experience has been bad for 2 months now. This was the one item my 4-year-old daughter wanted for Christmas more than anything. Once she opened it, it was her prized possession. It is absolutely nothing as advertised. The technology is simply not there and there is no way it should have made it to market already. There is so much work to be done. At first we thought it was her pronunciation. She is only 4, after all. So we took over the talking. It still couldn’t follow most commands. We thought maybe it was the very minimal noise in the background. We moved to a completely silent part of the house. Same thing. It would work for up to 5 minutes. ONE time we got to 10, but that was rare. After talking to her for a little while, she would get random. Most commands were met with, “Hmm, I didn’t understand that” or something along those lines. If she did appear to hear what you said, it would be so far off that it couldn’t be blamed for simply misunderstanding a word that sounded similar. For example, “Hey Miko, open up Space Explorer” and she would respond, “Ok, playing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on IHeart Radio!” What? I forget what my daughter said to it another morning. It was something about what she ate for breakfast or something like that and Miko started consoling her on the loss of her father. That led to a quick talk about death on the spot!For a child who struggled with her speech only a short year ago, this was very hard on her verbal confidence, but it had nothing to do with her. It did not work for anyone who spoke to it, so we returned it thinking it was defective. It was out of stock on Amazon, so we found one through Walmart.com. Same exact thing with a second.I get a random call from Miko one day asking about my experience. I told them, “Well, honestly not so good.” They offered to help, but it was not a good time, so we set up a time for them to call back. They called back at the wrong time, so I was unable to talk but they argued with me that that was the time I had provided. They said they would call the next day – the original time I told them to call. I made sure I was in a quiet spot, the bot was charged (because after the phonecall at the wrong time, I got an email that sounded like it was reprimanding me and telling me it had better be ready to go for the next scheduled call if I wanted help) and I had childcare so I could focus on the phonecall. 2 days went by. It never came.That’s when we had to break the news to her that Miko just wasn’t a great toy. For the price, we were returning it for money back. Despite the fact that we told her she could pick out ANYthing from the store instead, she was unbelievably upset.Fast forward a short time, and the Miko Max that I SWEAR I canceled shows up for a charge of $99. We don’t even have the product anymore, so we obviously don’t want the app. Yes, you can use the app without the product, but it is just screen time. That is not what we wanted. We let her get the Miko because it was educational and encouraged talking and listening comprehension. The app does none of that. It’s just brain-rotting screen time. Although I fully I believe that I canceled it right after seeing that’s all it was, I still had to go through the hassle of finding customer care to speak with on the issue. In the past, I have honestly forgotten to cancel subscriptions. If not a lot of time has passed, many companies just let you get a one-time refund and call it a day. Not this company. With broken English I spent a long time chatting online. Now keep in mind, this was a gift from my mother-in-law. I did none of the purchasing. She did initiate returns on her end and I physically returned them. But she did the buying/returning online. They want all sorts of proof of purchase from both stores. Thank God she held onto everything. We still had to go through and take all sorts of screen shots because it wasn’t good enough. Even the photo of the entire receipt for a return was not good enough. I sent them 5 different photos to prove we owned 2 bots and returned 2 bots just to try to get a refund for an app that doesn’t even require the bot. Finally, they tell me it’s being escalated so I can get help within 48 hours.I get an email from some higher-up and guess what! They need MORE proof! Are you kidding me? You have proof of us owning and returning 2 toys that were junk. You have a trail of horrible communication with this customer. And you just keep making this ordeal drag out from Christmas to the end of February?? What a disaster. I would not recommend this product for any child of any age, but if you do decide to get it, do not do it as a gift for someone in another household. Do it yourself and keep documentation of EVERYTHING. What a disaster from start to finish.

Update:I have received a response from the Miko Team. They will be replacing the messed up Miko Mini I have received. They emailed me and responded with “ a free upgrade to our flagship product -Miko 3. And with a complimentary 1 year Max subscription!”I really appreciate how fast they responded and how helpful they were. Will update when I receive the new one!I bought this robot at the beginning of December since my son seen it on a commercial and was set on getting it from “Santa”. As it is cute when you open the box and does look like its description. It’s not as “smart” as a robot should be. My son gets really frustrated with it as it takes a while to get its attention or to get a response from it. It says “hmm” and than says nothing after. When you start it up from the beginning it needs you to put a card on file and than ask you to upgrade and pay for the upgrade. Which is crazy since it’s already a pricey thing. I have also noticed when it does respond or plays a song it has a stutter and is unable to fully complete something with out stuttering.