Best tech toys 2022: Connected toys, robots and more

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(Pocket-lint) - For many, the days of building a spaceship out of Lego or the game of Monopoly are long gone.

Kids today want interactive tech toys that are app-powered or connect to the internet. They want animals that learn and grow as you play with them, or robots that respond.

And thankfully, toymakers are happy to oblige. There are many different tech toys for all ages, maybe even for yourself.

We've played, pushed, crashed and tested a wide range of crazy and sometimes scary toys, to bring you a list of the best tech toys around.

Our pick of the best tech toys to buy today

Mario Kart Live: Home Track

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This is an amazing new toy from the brilliant minds at Nintendo, and lets you have all the fun of playing Mario Kart but in your real home. You'll set up tracks in your rooms before playing them using the Nintendo Switch.

The karts have cameras on them to give you an overview of things, and you can take Mario or Luigi karts for multiplayer races, if you want. Looks like it could be one of the hot toys of the year.

Ducati Uprising

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The humble remote control car has been around for years, and while we occasionally see remote control bikes, they still have wheel supports to keep them from falling off. Spin Master has solved that problem with this new Ducati remote control bike that packs a number of gyros to keep it upright no matter what you do with it. Capable of going up to 20km an hour and performing somersaults, it's not cheap, but on the eighth donut you won't care.

Tonies

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This toy brings the "game-to-life" concept found in video games like Skylanders and Disney Infinity to the storybooks. At its heart it's a padded speaker that comes with various figurines of children's book characters that can be placed on top to start reading the story. Press the side and it skips to the next track - a game or song or similar, while removing the toy stops the book completely.

There are two types of character miniatures; ones with pre-loaded stories and others, called "creative-tonies", which are blank so you can load your own MP3 tracks into them.

Artie 3000

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A new coding robot that loves to draw, Artie 3000 can be programmed to draw a range of pre-programmed shapes, or just anything you can imagine. Reminiscent of the cartoon turtle of the 1980s, it's a simple robot to use and code. Kids will be able to program the robot via PC, Mac or tablet and Artie includes a number of games, so it's not just work, work, work.

Osmo

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Bringing traditional gaming to iOS, Osmo creates a number of interactive games that use an iPad as a game board, while also using the tablet's onboard camera to see what you're doing. Games include Coding Jam, which uses physical coding blocks to solve on-screen puzzles, and even gives your child the chance to run a pizzeria, which encourages maths. Osmo also has some simpler, but still very smart learning apps, like drawing, basic math and English.

Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit

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With this coding kit, Harry Potter fans can follow step-by-step instructions to build a wand, which includes a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer so it can track the location, speed and position of a hand. Sensors allow the wand to detect spell movements in the Harry Potter world, then kids can use the wand to complete Harry Potter-related challenges in the Kano app.

balance beasts

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It's a stacking game that uses an iPad, iPhone or Apple TV app to give it an extra dimension and brilliantly marries traditional gameplay with a tech twist. The end result is great fun as not only are you challenged to balance the many beautifully designed animals on the included scales, but at the same time you see what creatures you can create by adding different counters and animals. Anyone for a Hogtopus? Yes, it's a half-warthog half-octopus beast if I was wondering. The game ends when you can no longer stack.

Furreal Roarin Tyler

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Roar at Roarin Tyler and he will answer you. The cute and fluffy tiger cub comes with 100 different sound and motion combinations and reacts to all kinds of touches and noises. If that wasn't enough to get you interested, the baby tiger can also move its eyes, ears, head, mouth, and tail. Hasbro even throws in a toy chicken so it doesn't try to eat your TV remote.

Hatchimals Surprise

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With Hatchimals Surprise you get two little critters eager to come out of their shells rather than just one. The purpose of the toy is to lovingly feed each Hatchimal to help it hatch. When they enter the brave new world, the owner must help them grow from baby to toddler to child. The twins, as they are called, can relate, share secrets, play games and dance.

Sphero Mini

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Sphero Mini is a smaller version of the original app-enabled robot toy, even smaller. The size of a ping pong ball, you can control it with different modes in the Sphero Mini app, or you can just use your face thanks to a new feature called Face Drive. This uses your facial expressions to direct the ball.

Sphero Mini sports a small gyroscope, accelerometer and LED lights, as well as light-up swappable shells. It uses Micro USB charging and gives you about one hour of playtime after one hour of full charge. It also comes with three mini traffic cones and six mini bowling pins for different games.

Small pieces R2-D2

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Using LittleBits' electronic block technology and the free Droid Inventor app, kids young and old can teach their R2 Unite robot new tricks and take it on over 16 missions across the Star Wars universe. Kids can even level up their inventor expertise and reconfigure their droid to give it new skills, allowing it to be controlled by The Force or similar. The Droid Inventor Kit comes with everything kids need to create and customize their R2 Unite right out of the box.

AI robot boxer

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The Boxer is not only small and hand-sized, but it can pull off some impressive tricks with a personality usually associated with bigger, more expensive toys.

He has an expressive matrix face that offers expressions and interactions with the player. It can detect movement in front of it and respond to it in a variety of ways. Tracking fingers or kicking a small ball are just the tip of the iceberg. A range of cards can be scanned to allow him to play a wide variety of games. Better yet, you don't need a smartphone to play with it.