Review: Playskool Dance Cam
Written on Dec 1, 2008 by Brian and filed under News, Playskool, Reviews
The Playskool Dance Cam is designed to let kids age 3-6 feel like stars as they dance to music. The best part is that kids get to see themselves live on their televisions, complete with extra characters like dancing dogs. Dance Cam connects to any television via standard RCA cables and runs on 4 AA batteries.
Dance Cam Setup
Getting started with Dance Cam couldn’t be much easier. Snap on the base, add the batteries (not included) and from there it’s pretty much plug and play. Playskool included RCA cables that handle the video and two-channel audio (red and white), something that not all kids toys do. Since you can connect an MP3 player to get additional tunes, the extra audio channel is appreciated.
The MP3 player connection is pretty smart too. While the Dance Cam comes with a total of 20 different songs, they’re designed mostly for pre-school kids, so older kids will definitely appreciate being able to plug in their own music.
It’s easiest to set up the Dance Cam on the floor or even with the TV; the camera actually swivels up to help frame kids properly. It doesn’t point down though, so you can’t place it on top of the set. The images from the camera are also mirrored, which is a pretty important feature, so kid’s movements are reflected back instead of flipped over as they would be on a video camera for instance.
The only bit of downside with Dance Cam is because the resolution of the camera isn’t very high, it really does best on smaller televisions. Playskool recommends 27″ televisions or less, we tested on both larger and smaller with reasonable results. The larger you get though, the more pixelated the animations are and the more evident the low-resolution camera becomes. But, as we’ve noted in several other reviews, for kids, looking great on a plasma television isn’t the most important thing. Seeing themselves dance on TV, no matter how great it looks to the parents, is still a huge treat.
Once you’re powered up, Dance Cam is intuitive to use, from the on-screen menus to the color-coded buttons. We had a couple test groups use the Dance Cam, and both groups of kids were quickly able to figure out how to get started without parental involvement. There are a few different play modes though, so running through the options with your kids before they are off and running is probably a good idea.
Dance Cam Play Modes
The Dance Cam system features three different play modes: Dance Along, Cool Moves and Freestyle.
In Dance Along children dance to 16 pre-school friendly songs (Bingo, Old MacDonald, Ants Go Marching, etc.). The younger kids we worked with really enjoyed this mode because they knew the songs and there are also animated characters on the screen that are fun too. Older kids found the music to be a bit too young for them, the sweet spot for this game mode is probably in the 3-4 age range.
In Cool Moves mode, an animated character teaches simple dance moves to the kids with four different songs. This mode is actually pretty fun, but in both of our test groups, the kids were far too bonkers to settle down enough to really get the idea. We suspect that this mode would be better with kids by themselves or groups of older kids in the 5-6 age range.
Freestyle mode is really where kids older than 4-5 will really see a lot of value. This is the only mode where you can connect an MP3 player, or any source that can output via 3.5mm cable. This mode also removes the backgrounds and characters. Essentially kids can plug in their own music and jam out as they see fit.
In Freestyle mode the system will run for 30 minutes before returning to the main menu. The Dance Cam will also shut off after 5 minutes of inactivity.
Fun Factor
There were a few things that happened with both of our test groups. First, they both went nuts when they started with the system. Kids were jumping everywhere including the furniture, and bouncing off the walls in excitement. We set up in a kid friendly area, so this behavior was more than fine, though a few parents did run for cover.
After they wound down though, both groups had fun, but the girls really took to it much better than the boys. That’s not to say it’s a girl’s toy, but that boys had more fun in larger groups, but didn’t have much interest in on their own or even with a friend. The girls on the other hand did well when paired off into twos.
In any event, it’s definitely a party game and can entertain kids for a while. The batteries hold up very well too. We’ve been testing for a few weeks on the same set, so depending on usage you should see at least a few weeks.
Bottom Line
The graphics and camera quality will have parents concerned out of the box, but the kids probably won’t care. We had nearly a dozen take a look and not one of them said a word about it. A few thought the included songs were too young for them, which is a fair statement and why the Freestyle mode with MP3 player support is so key. Girls definitely had more fun with Dance Cam than boys, but the camera really ex cells in group play, where both boys and girls had a blast. Once the euphoria of seeing themselves on TV wore off, they all settled down and had a great deal of fun with the system.
Retail price ranges from $40-$50 and at that price, we feel like Dance Cam is a good bet for entertaining groups of kids, or just one, if they have a desire to be a performer.
4 out of 5 stars
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