Top positive review
5 people found this helpful
Great learning/teaching tool
By Val on Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2020
Osmo was recommended to me several years ago. I had forgotten about it until my house became “Gram School” while our world was social distancing. Our five year old grandson initially enjoyed the learning tools I had on hand, but I felt there was something else we could be doing to challenge him. I chose the Osmo Genius Starter Kit for IPad for 6-10 year olds after reading a review which indicated the five year old was ready for a more advanced level. Great advice! This kit comes with 5 different Learning Programs. The child is able to advance through the different levels as he/she is ready. My grandson is in Pre-K and we have chosen the Junior level. These math skills and letter sounds are spot on for him. He is learning to add and subtract and identify letter sounds without frustration. I can see him gaining confidence as he chooses the playing pieces to answer the questions. There are a few games guided by special characters which he enjoys. The Tangram offers puzzles at the Junior level and allows him to advance as he is ready. He is not as interested in Masterpiece a drawing program and is just learning the concept of Newton which is described as creative engineering with virtual balls and creating paths for them with shapes and everyday tools. There is a program for the phone for the parent to monitor progress and time spent on activities. As this is for a young child, I sit with him and supervise. I haven’t seen any clear cut directions for playing some of these games, although my grandson picked right up on it. I would prefer that I could lock the game from advancing until the child is ready for the next level. This was a bit problematic, and then he learned for himself that he was not ready for the next level. I would recommend this for any family. Although the initial cost is a bit pricey, if he uses this as a learning tool the next five years, it is money well spent. This package comes with the base for the tablet and five games. Other games can be purchased and used on this same base.
Top critical review
137 people found this helpful
Great concept, terrible, terrible implementation
By Xpendable on Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2021
This is really a great augmented reality concept. Unfortunately, it is a terrible, terrible implementation. So terrible, that I feel obligated to write a review and warn others about this product. Read on if you'd like to see what you are in for... First of all, I bought this product for my 8 1/2 year old daughter as a Christmas present. She has a Fire HD 8 (10th edition). That is going to become really important in a moment, because we bought the product that says it is compatible with the Fire HD 8. Only it's not... Read on. I have a degree in Computer Science and am a Sr. Solutions Architect for a Fortune 100 company. I design software for a living. So you could say I'm pretty qualified to review this product. First off, when we opened the packaging, we didn't find the piece of cardboard that told you what to do with the product. We looked all over. We found nothing. No booklet, no card, no pamphlet, no instructions of any kind. Okay... so eventually I wander over to the Osmo website and it says to go to the app store and download Osmo World. So I did that. It had be enter in a parent email and then sent me a 6 digit code via email that I had to enter in to the app. This takes me to the main Osmo World screen. I clicked the mirror thing over the camera as shown on the box... but the Osmo World app REFUSES to go in landscape mode. Yep. The literally designed the software to be incapable of operating in landscape. Who does this? What is wrong with you people? I search online and after spending more than HOUR fighting with the useless Osmo tech support "BOT" that is less trained than my dead dog, I finally learn that if I have a Fire HD 8 (10th edition)... I have to buy a $10 adapter that is not included in the box. WHAT? Key word here is the 10th edition. Because Amazon put the front facing camera on the landscape side of the tablet, and all the other editions of the tablet have the camera on the portrait side, which apparently the Osmo wants. The $10 adapter was not included in the edition that we bought. We can order it off of Amazon. I read more about this adapter and learned that it's basically a rubber band that serves as a spacer to keep the mirror from covering up the camera. That's it. Well dang... you don't really need this stupid thing. I'm a computer engineer, don't forget. So sure enough, if you extend the legs on the base and snap on the mirror over the camera and just make sure there's a little gap so that it's not covering the camera, it'll work. Ok, off to the races, right? Unfortunately, the Osmo World doesn't care or know that you have the adapter or not, it still REFUSES to display in landscape mode. So yes, the main app ONLY renders in portrait mode, period. Oh, did I mention their website clearly states that only SOME of the Osmo apps, but not all, will work in landscape mode? Yeah, they don't mention that on the box, and I double-checked after this fiasco. So we were able to get it work with a couple of apps. But that's it. Remember me mentioning there were no instructions? Well, the NEXT day, I found a piece of cardboard that contained a simple instruction to go to the Osmo website and redeem a special code that was printed on the cardboard. We never saw this yesterday, and would have saved us a little bit of trouble, but not much. So today I did that, and this unlocks the 7 games this thing is supposed to come with. Well guess what? The instructions have you log in on your parent profile, and you have to individually find EACH of the 7 games in the Kindle App Store, and download and install each of them 1 by 1. That took about 20 minutes just do that step. The next step... you have go into the Fire settings, into the profile & family management, select your child's profile, then share content, then click apps & games, then you have to select all 7 of the apps you previously downloaded. Then you log out of your profile and then log into your child's profile. Done, right? NOPE! Now, you have to click on each of the 7 apps which are now shown under the "Shared Content" section, which proceeds to RE-DOWNLOAD each app all over again. So... yes... ANOTHER 20 minutes to download and install all 7 apps a second time. Holy mother of a hamster. And after ALL that jazz... the Osmo World is basically a front "menu" app, and ALL it does is act as a terrible launcher for the apps, which you have to MANUALLY install individually, twice. Oh. my. lord. This is beyond stupid. In this day in age, they couldn't figure how to do this more efficiently so it would all be built into a single app. The people came up with this product had a great idea... unfortunately, they implemented it in the WORST possible way. They deserve a specially reserved place in the opposite side of heaven. I mean... Really. Save your money. Buy your kid something else. This is a TERRIBLE product.
Sort by:
Filter by:
By -
Verified Amazon Purchase
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
Sorry, no reviews match your current selections.
Try clearing or changing some filters.Show all reviews
Show more reviews