When my Kindergartener got his first report card he got to go to the store and pick out a small toy. It only seemed fair to get little brother something too. My toddler loves vehicles, so when we spotted the VTech Smartville Alphabet Train Station it looked like a great candidate for a Christmas present, but was far too big to get for this smaller occasion. We decided instead on the Smartville Safe & Sound Fire Station. Based on my feelings on the fire station, I am not so sure that we'll be purchasing the train station in the future after all...

Product Description:

The VTech Smartville Safe & Sound Fire Station is a simple, cute, and colorful little fire station facade. It is a "learning toy" that teaches animal identification and emergency play with interactive lights and sounds. Included with the station are 3 animals (a Dalmatian, a cat, and a bird), a fire engine, and 2 "emergency objects" (a cone and a fire-hydrant).

The fire station facade is fairly simple. There is an arched doorway with a yellow swinging "gate" that the fire engine can drive through. There is a translucent yellow bell button at the top that can be pressed for lights and sounds. To the right of the doorway is a slide/chute as well as a button (they call the "elevator button") at the bottom that also triggers lights and sounds. To the left of the doorway is the "hot spot" (more on that below), a fire alarm button, and perch where you can set the bird character. There is also a slot at the top of the doorway that is a good place for storing a character piece. The on/off button located toward the front of the base slides between "Off", "low-volume", and "high-volume".

There is a circular "hot spot" near the entryway where you can place the 3 animal characters or the fire hydrant. As you put a character in it will identify itself ("I'm a Dalmatian!") followed by the sound that animal makes. As you remove the piece the station will plays that animal's sound (barking, meowing, etc) again. The fire hydrant plays a water-flowing noise when placed on the base and a short knocking noise when removed (I'm not sure if that's intentional or not). There appears to be a magnet in the "hot spot" and a metal piece at the bottom of each animal character, so the characters stay-put securely when placed on the spot. You can also press the "hot spot" without a character to hear a woman's voice say "Emergency! Quick, to the fire truck" or "Dial 911. We're here to help".

There are a variety of additional interactive spots on the toy:
* When you press the bell at the top of the station it will play a woman's voice saying "Emergency! Emergency!" or a ringing bell.
* When you press the "elevator" button a woman's voice will say "Emergency! Emergency!" or "3-2-1 Watch out below".
* Pressing the fire alarm button will trigger some bells, the woman's voice saying "Emergency! Quick, to the fire truck!" or saying "We're here to help"
* Pressing the "emergency" gate button plays a short little "1 Little 2 Little 3 Little Firemen" song or the woman's voice saying "Dial 911! We're here to help"
* If you don't trigger anything for a short while, the toy will play a variety of sounds to encourage your youngster to keep playing. These include:
    » (Siren sound) "Dial 911. We're here to help"
    » "Emergency! Quick! To the fire truck." (followed by siren sound)
    » Ringing bells
    » One of 4 or 5 simple little tunes (including "Here comes Peter Cottontail"...)

Please note that while many of the phrases are "emergency" type phrases, they are said in a pleasant, not panicked tone of voice.

The fire engine is not particularly impressive. It is a fairly simple hard red plastic with blue wheels and a couple stickers on the front for decoration. The wheels roll easily. There's a little yellow ladder hinged at the back, and a downward-pointing hook at the rear (so I assume you could pull other vehicles behind it, but I have yet to see anything else from VTech that could be attached there). The round seat is extremely shallow, so the characters don't stay-put in it very well.

The animal characters are cute and chunky with big heads and cute smiling faces. They are very lightweight and a good size for little hands.

The manufacturer recommends this toy for children ages 12 months and up. Two "AA" batteries (not included) are required. The toy automatically shuts itself off after 1 minute of non-use, and will re-active with the touch of any button.

Our Thoughts & Experiences:

First and foremost my son is a vehicle lover, so I was immediately disappointed in the fire engine. There just isn't much to it. The seat is so shallow that the characters will not stay on the fire engine as my son tries to roll it along. Since there's a magnet in the fire station base to hold the characters on the "hot spot", I don't see why they couldn't have embedded a magnet in the seat of the fire truck to help the characters stay put there as well. My vehicle-loving son has no interest in this particular vehicle.

The "elevator" or slide or whatever they want to call it is equally unimpressive. While there is a slight slant to the back of it, there isn't enough slant to actually call it a "slide". The instructions call it an "elevator", but since there is nothing to raise and lower all it really is is a 3-sided chute. I could understand a fireman's pole, but not an elevator shaft. You can drop a character in the top and it will fall down - not much fun there. I had thought that the "elevator button" at the bottom might stop the character's fall, but the characters themselves are so slick and lightweight that they always just clatter out and down onto the floor.

There characters are cute and a good size for a toddler's hands, so I can't really complain about them. I can complain that there's no place to store them on the toy, so they invariably get separated from station and lost throughout the house. They are also made from a very hard, slick, thin plastic, which just makes them feel cheap when compared with Fisher Price's Little People characters.

For all my complaining, my son does indeed play with this toy. He likes pushing all of the buttons to trigger the sounds, and he loves opening and closing the gate. He likes putting the characters onto the "hot spot" too, so the toy isn't a complete bust. It's also lightweight enough that he can carry the base around with him. He does enjoy his time with this toy, so I don't regret purchasing it for him.

The "hot spot" with the 3 characters (plus the fire hydrant) is a great concept (somewhat similar to our baby-beloved Little Linguist toy). Because of this I'm still tempted to get the Smartville train set (which comes with a whopping 28 characters), although I'm still undecided as of yet.

Quickie Summary:
Pros:
+) A cute fire-station themed toy
+) Includes 3 animal character pieces (Dalmatian, cat, bird)
+) Includes a fire engine and 2 "emergency" pieces (orange cone, fire hydrant)
+) The character pieces will work in other VTech Smartville sets.
+) Off/low-volume/high-volume settings
+) Lots of interactive buttons/features
+) Teaches animal identification and emergency/rescue concepts
Cons:
-) The included fire engine is not much fun. The characters won't even stay in the seat.
-) The elevator/slide/chute doesn't work very well
-) There's no storage space on the base for all of the pieces

Final Thoughts:

I'm simply not impressed with this toy. I thought that I was buying a cute little fire-station toy for my vehicle loving toddler, but the vehicle itself is very unimpressive and there isn't much to the fire station either. On the positive side there is a lot of interaction on the fire station, and my son does enjoy that aspect of it. If you're looking for an interactive toy with lots of buttons to push then this one may be a good choice - but don't get it if you are looking for a fun vehicle-themed toy.



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 13.99