A toy sold as “smart” is regulated as three different objects at once: a physical product, an electrical device, and — if it has a microphone and a network connection — a data processor. Three sets of rules apply, they are enforced by different bodies, and passing one tells you nothing about the other two. Most of the confusion in this subject comes from people checking the rules they know about and assuming the rest are covered.
This guide is about the checks that change outcomes. It is deliberately short, because a checklist that takes an hour is a checklist nobody uses.
Three rulebooks, and what each one covers
Physical safety. Governed by toy safety directives and standards — in the US by the ASTM F963 standard under CPSC authority, in the EU by the Toy Safety Directive and EN 71. These cover small parts, sharp edges, flammability, and the age-grading that determines which hazards are permitted at all.
Electrical safety. Where the toy contains a battery, a charger, or a mains adapter, a different regime applies, and it is about the battery and the charging circuit rather than the toy. This is where the failures that make the news come from — not from the toy’s design but from a cell or a charger that was sourced to a price.
Data protection. If the toy records audio or connects to a service, the relevant rules are COPPA in the US and the GDPR and the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code in Europe. These govern consent and retention, not safety in any physical sense, and they are the rules most likely to be broken quietly.
The physical checks worth sixty seconds
The battery compartment. It should require a screwdriver or a coin, not a fingernail. A compartment a four-year-old can open is a compartment a four-year-old will open, and button cells swallowed cause damage fast enough that the outcome depends on minutes.
Magnets. Two small high-strength magnets that attract each other across a child’s intestine are a surgical emergency, and this is not a rare event. If a set contains small magnets, check that they are captive — sealed inside a component that cannot be opened — rather than loose. The check is to try to extract one with a fingernail for ten seconds.
Small parts against the stated age. The age on the box is a safety grade, not a suggestion. A toy marked 3+ has been assessed for a child who no longer mouths objects; giving it to a two-year-old bypasses the assessment rather than the hazard.
The marks, and where they are. A CE or UKCA mark is a manufacturer’s declaration, not a certificate from a regulator, and it is worth exactly as much as the manufacturer’s honesty. The mark to look for on the toy itself is the one that names a testing body where the regime requires it. A mark printed only on the outer carton, not on the toy, is a mark applied at packaging rather than at manufacture.
Electrical: batteries, chargers, and the part nobody inspects
Lithium cells in toys fail in a characteristic way: thermal runaway, usually during charging, usually when nobody is watching. The practical mitigations are unglamorous and effective. Charge during the day rather than overnight. Use the charger that came with the device, because a fast charger designed for a phone will push current a toy’s circuit was not built for. Stop using a cell that has swollen — a swollen battery is not a battery with a cosmetic problem, it is a battery that has already begun to fail.
For toys with sealed non-replaceable batteries, the relevant question is what happens at end of life, because a toy that cannot be opened is a toy that goes in the bin with its cell. That is a waste problem more than a safety one, but the two meet when a child finds the discarded toy.
What connected toys have actually failed at
The failure record in this category is consistent, and it is not about explosions. It is about three things.
Unsecured storage. Voice recordings and account details held on a server with weak access control, discovered by a researcher rather than by the company. This has happened repeatedly across the category, and the pattern is that the toy itself is fine and the backend is not.
Default credentials. Cameras and microphones reachable from the internet because the device shipped with a known default password and no prompt to change it.
Service shutdown without a data plan. A toy that stops working is an inconvenience; a toy that stops working while the vendor still holds the recordings is a question nobody answers. When a company in this category winds down, the data usually goes with it, and there is no mechanism for a parent to retrieve or delete it.
The most detailed case study on this site is Moxie, where a $1,499 robot became unusable after the company behind it wound down. It is a data story as much as a hardware story.
Secondhand, which is where the marks get lost
Secondhand is usually the right environmental choice and the wrong safety choice in two specific cases: anything with a lithium cell of unknown history, and anything whose small parts may already be missing. A used building set that has lost four magnets is a used building set with four loose magnets in a box.
The checks are quick. Ask the age of the battery and whether it has ever swollen. Count the small parts against the parts list if the set is the kind that matters. And check the toy still carries its mark — labels fall off, and a toy without a mark is a toy whose compliance you are taking on trust.
What we have reviewed in this section
Are smart toys safe? — the long version of this guide: the marks, the failure record, which categories carry the most risk, and the five questions to ask before buying.
Kids’ tech covers the devices where these risks concentrate, and AI toys covers the data side in more detail. For the age bands, stocking stuffers has the small-parts line drawn explicitly, because a stocking is where small objects meet small children.
FAQ
Are smart toys safe for a two-year-old?
Most are not, and the reason is the battery rather than the intelligence. A two-year-old mouths objects, which rules out anything with a reachable cell, a loose magnet, or a compartment openable without a tool. The connected features are irrelevant at that age; the physical checks are the whole assessment.
Does a CE mark mean a toy is safe?
It means the manufacturer declares it meets the applicable directives. It is a self-declaration for most toy categories, not an approval by a regulator, and it is therefore a statement about the manufacturer’s process rather than an independent finding. It is still worth checking — a toy without one has skipped even the declaration.
What should I do with a toy whose battery has swollen?
Stop charging it and stop using it, and do not puncture or compress it. Take it to a household hazardous waste point or a retailer that accepts cells; a swollen lithium cell in a kitchen bin is a fire that starts later, in a truck. The toy is finished, and the only decision left is where the cell goes.
How we put this together
From regulatory text, published standards, recall notices and the pattern across incident reports. We are not a testing body and this is not a substitute for one; where a rule is cited, it is cited because it is the rule that decides the outcome, and the article names it so you can check it yourself.
If you have had a failure that is not described here, that is the most useful thing you can send us: contact.
On the limits of this page. We are not a testing body; no product here has been through a laboratory, and a citation is not an endorsement. Everything here is built from regulatory text, published standards, recall notices, and the pattern across incident reports. If a claim below depends on a number, the number and the date it was checked are stated. How the checks work.