Tiny Love Symphony-in-Motion Remote Mobile
by Tiny Love
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List Price: Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Tiny Love Symphony-in-Motion Remote Mobile
Customer Review: NOISY & IMPRACTICAL!
Summary: 1 Stars
I was so excited about this mobile when I saw it in the store. I loved that it had a remote control and that it played classical music from 3 different composers. The animals and colors looked like they would be entertaining for the baby and we thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately, we never got to try it out with the baby in the crib because when we were putting it up before the baby arrived, we realized that it wasn't all it was supposed to be. First of all, you can't put it on your crib if you are using a bumper. You could use it after you remove the bumper, but the mobile is most entertaining the first 3 months of the baby's life and that's when you're going to use the bumper (you could just save it and use the musical attachment for later, but why spend all this money up front for something you can't use the whole time?). If you do try and put this mobile up with a bumper, the bumper will block the remote control receiver, so you can't use the remote at all. The bumper will also block the buttons that initiate the music if you want to do it manually.
Even worse, however, is that you can't secure your bumper to the crib because of the control unit - it sticks out and will become a hazard to the baby once he or she is moving around more in the crib.
Finally, the mobile is LOUD. I'm not talking about the music, but the mechanism that makes it spin. It produces a loud buzzing sound and a smashing sound as the shapes fall down the spokes - both of these noises are loud and almost covers up the music and doesn't seem soothing at all (plus the speaker's on the main unit that gets hidden by the bumper, therefore muting the classical music even more). The mobile is angled and as the unit turns, the animals seem to fall very low towards the crib - it looks like they might actually hit the baby in the face!
Overall, I was very disappointed and ended up having to take it back. The manufacturer should go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make this product work more efficiently. They should have also make it clear that a bumper can't be used with this product and that it was loud - with that information, I would have thought twice before spending $49.99 on something so impracticle.
Customer Review: The best toy I bought-- My one year old is still using it
Summary: 5 Stars
My daughter is now one year old, and this was by far the most useful toy I bought her when she was born. It says it is for a baby up to 5 months, but she is still using it now because it is possible to detach the whole mobile part(which an older baby could reach and get tangled in) and just leave the music box attached to the crib. She turns it on by herself! When she was about 2 or 3 months old, she began to watch the mobile and wiggle and squeal with delight. She was so interested in it that I was able to go take a shower or do other things during a 15 minute cyle of music- a real help in the early months. We used it several times every day, and it used very few batteries. It attached easily to our crib with curved rails.
Negative points:
1)It's kind of loud, even on low, so I put a piece of clear packing tape over the speaker and that made the sound just right.
2)The music quality is not as pretty as I had hoped, but it's better than other brands offered. My baby much prefers the rich tinkling sound of a real wind-up music box to any electronic music, so I would suggest also buying a standard music box.
3) The mobile was so exciting to her that it was an activity toy, but not a help to get to sleep. In fact, my baby would eventually become over-stimuated by it and start rubbing her eyes and making noises when she wanted me to turn it off to let her sleep. For naps and bedtime, I used a gentle water-sounds machine to lull her to sleep and drown out any noise she might hear from elsewhere in the house, and she is still using that, too. An aquarium toy is also nice and can be turned on by an older baby.
This is a fantastic toy, and I am so glad to be able to use it well beyond the 5 months the manufacturer recommends. My baby almost never minds going to bed, and I wonder if this toy helped her to see her bed as a pleasant place to be.
Customer Review: A Very Entertaining Mobile, but Probably not for Sleepy-Time
Summary: 4 Stars
The Symphony in Motion mobile is a very entertaining diversion for babies. Its bright colors and high-contrast black-and-white pieces create a scene that will captivate your little one. For this reason, it's an invaluable crib toy that can buy you some of that hands-free time that's always in short supply for new parents.
The music box plays a choice of three classical pieces. While each is a soothing mid-tempo tune, the mobile is best suited for play time rather than nap time for two reasons: first, with the mobile running, baby will be too involved in its motion (and could get overwhelmed and fussy if he/she is ready for some downtime). Second, even with just the music box playing, the music is a little too loud for most young babies to sleep through. As a result, we kept a separate item in the crib as a sleep-time routine (the Fisher-Price Aquarium, which is also excellent).
We're using our mobile for our second child now and it's been a hit with each. Even after our older one was too big for the mobile (i.e. could push up and reach/pull the pieces), he loved the music box by itself and would often turn it on by himself to entertain himself after having awakened from a nap.
It comes with a remote control that lets you start/stop the mobile and music box for a distance in case you don't want to be a distraction to baby's downtime. We've found battery life to be very good compared to most toys.
PROS
* Excellent attention-grabber; the combination of color and black-and-white really keeps baby's eyes following.
* Nice playback of classical tunes - not too electronic or "toy" sounding.
* Battery life is generally very good.
CONS
* Volume is too loud for soothing most babies to sleep.
Customer Review: Great Mobile but Dangerous
Summary: 3 Stars
We love this mobile and so does our 5 month old son. He squeals with delight whenever it is turned on. However, I was horrified when, like some others, he awoke crying at 3 AM one morning (he was 3 1/2 months old then). When I went to check on him, I saw that the whole assembly with the animals and beads had fallen on his head! I was very upset. He had the string wrapped all around his wrist as well. We reattached the mobile the next day (I left it out of his crib that morning) because we thought maybe it had just come loose for some odd reason and it was a fluke. To my shock, it fell again a few days later, although he was not in his crib.I contacted Tiny Love via e-mail and they told me that they had received similar complaints and that one of two things were happening:
1) People were not holding in the little button when attaching the animal assembly to the 'arm'. If you don't hold the button in the whole time it can fall like this.
2) Sometimes the little piece of plastic inside the 'arm' where it attached can chip and break, causing it not to lock into place.
Tiny Love did say they would send me a new one at no charge so I gave them my name and address. Three weeks went by and I had not received it so I sent a follow up e-mail. A week later we received our new parts (it came with a new arm and the hanging assembly). If we had not had this problem, I would have given this product a 5+ star rating. However, be very careful when you install it, and check it frequently to ensure it is not coming loose. We installed the new one that we just got a couple of weeks ago and no problems yet. Ours had chipped on the inside so it was not snapping into place and that is why it fell.
Customer Review: If I've only knew then
Summary: 2 Stars
My baby loved this mobile since we brought him home from the hospital. BUT after only three (3) months the spinning mechanism stopped working and by that time it was too late to take it back to the store for a refund. I started my rating with 5 stars because I love classical music and I thought it would be such an investment to have my child listen to something wonderful but subtracted one star for each the following:
(1)The spinning mechanism stopped working after three months.
(2)The "remote control" does not work like a remote for a TV. I'll try to explain the best I can. In order to work the remote: 1st press the button on the music box "manual/on/remote" to remote; 2nd - with the hand held "remote" pick the piece (song) you want to play for the next 15 minutes straight. 3rd - When that piece is finish playing (or if you want to play one of the other two) press the next button on the remove for the music you want to hear for the next 15 mins. This must be done each time because unlike the music box where you press manual and all three pieces play one after the other for about 15 mins., the remote can only play one song at a time. I hope you can understand my frustration and that is the reason the remote control is a useless expense.
And (3) the cost of this mobile is way too high. I should have bought a cd player to play my cds and a cheaper mobile for visual effects.
Overall, this piece of equipment has a great deal of potential and they have come along way from the wind-up mobiles but they are not there yet. So please save yourself some time unless you want to drop $50+ bucks and don't expect too much for it.