There are certain toys that stay with you. I remember my first bike, I remember my Barbie dolls (even the ones I shaved the hair off) and I definitely remember Furbies. The first Furbies appeared 18 years ago and I was well past the age when I should have been buying them, but I remember being desperate to get my hands on this weird little owl-hamster type furry creature.

Then two years ago my kids discovered Furby. They begged and begged and I caved in and got them two Furby Booms for Christmas. This was a whole new kind of Furby which could hatch an egg in an app.

So you can imagine the level of excitement in our house when we found out about the new Furby Connect. There are still all the features you love, crazy noises and chattering in Furbish (such as Kah Noh-lah aka I want to dance). But there’s so much more. For starters they have taken the toilet humour that kids love so much, and parents pretend to hate, with jazz farts when you pull Furby’s tail and pooping in the toilet on the Furby Connect app.

The Furby cleverly interacts with the app using Bluetooth (and that leaves room for lots of clever tech development in the coming months). In the app you can feed your Furby and play games and there’s a whole other world to explore beyond the furry friend in front of you. My favourite feature (and my kids) is the theatre, where there are videos clips and songs that your Furby interacts with (these change over time).

The Furby Connect itself is a step up from the Boom, it has softer fur and eyes that light up with 150 different expressions. It’s ears move and there’s a light-up antenna. It loves being tickled, which makes it giggle and instructs kids (or big kids) to do different things to keep the play and interactivity going. And they’ve fixed the ‘shut that thing up’ issue by adding a sleep mask which clips over the eyes for instant peace.

How to enter

So if you’d like to get your hands on one of the must-have toys for Christmas 2016 just enter our competition below.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/mumpanelFurbyConnectCompetition (and you can share this blog post using the buttons below)

And if you’re around today we’re hosting a Furby Connect twitter party today – Friday 7th October at 1pm. Find us @MumPanel, follow #FurbyFriday, they’ll be lots of Furby chat and another chance to win a Furby.

(And if you’re wondering Kah toh-loo means Me Like)