Barbie Hello Dreamhouse - Discontinued from Manufacturer

We got this for our 7 year old and she LOVES it. Super cool Barbie house for the techy kid! Had a FEW glitches at first but the system is wireless and updates itself quickly.

A total and thoroughly aggressive example in bad engineering, gimmicks gone awry, and overly-expensive plastic garbage. Where to begin..? -On Christmas morning, Mattel's servers were unresponsive so the product would not function, loudly repeating an error code over and over until the house was powered down. As a computer engineer with over a two decades of witnessing servers getting hammered, all I could think was "oh boy, here we go." -The following day, after Mattel realized their product won't function at all without server connectivity and decided to get their shit together, the house's voice command features worked for about an hour...until they didn't anymore. Same error code as yesterday. I again took the time to troubleshoot the problem but concluded it could only be Mattel's servers having more issues. A quick call to customer service confirmed this suspicion. -The following two weeks were a guessing game of when the nearly $300 doll house was going to work, switching between connectivity errors to door jam errors. Finally the house would not work due to a door jam that I couldn't repair despite following all of Mattel's customer service troubleshooting procedures. Mattel customer service admitted this is a problem inherent with the mechanics of the house. My 5 year old daughter was very disappointed in her failed Christmas gift. If someone from the product design team for this product happens to read this, allow me to make one suggestion: If the house has a door jam or the dining room chandelier isn't working, don't kill functionality of EVERYTHING else, leaving the product completely inoperational due to one piece not functioning correctly. Absolutely terrible design and would be amazed if there was any sort of product testing before this thing went to market.

Amazing, I did get an email from the engineers christmas morning that some people were having issues connecting and they were working on the problem immediately. I only had a slight issue but I tried again in a half hour to hook it up and it worked. Once it worked it was amazing. I haven't had any problems with it since and my 8 year old can operate it herself with very little frustration and she gets frustrated when things don't work easily. I am sad to see so many bad reviews with so many bad experiences christmas morning. Ours is Awesome and my 8 year old says its the best toy she has and she has a lot of toys and almost every barbie item. I hope for the people who had issues they have been addressed and they can see how awesome this house it. We LOVE it... My only wish is they had this when I was a kid..

I was really hesitant to buy this because of all the terrible reviews I've been reading . But it went on sale PLUS my daughter really really has been asking for it so I finally decided to order one . My daughter LOVES it . When I finally gave this to her , she could not believe her eyes. My husband and I installed it together and let me just say , follow the instructions to the tee. Also the parts need to click in completely , specially the parts where the usb like connectors are. I suggest putting it together where you permanently want the house to be (we've found out that moving it around can cause the dreaded error messages ) and also being extra careful with putting on the roof where the brain of the whole house is . It seems it doesn't exactly align well which causes the unit not to work. But my Superman husband was just really cautious when putting it together and made sure there was a click each time he attached something . Another tip is to put this together in a well lit area so you can see exactly how things fit . HOURS of fun for everyone . Even I am amazed at this toy . My daughter spent like 6 hours of non stop play with the toy on the first day she got it . And now all her friends come over to play with it . There are so many commands and it's a bit frustrating that there is no one comprehensive list . But I'm guessing it's because they add to it each time they update . Oh and you have to tell your child to speak clearly and sometimes she must go near where the mic is . Otherwise the house just won't get it . The day after we put this together we needed to move it to its permanent place and we experienced the dreaded error message . I think the main problem of this product is with the main roof . You really need to find a way to make sure that everything is aligned and is flush against each other . I would give this 5 stars because it really is an amazing toy . But I think Mattel still has to work out certain kinks . Like it should be be so sensitive to movement. That's why I gave it 4 stars. It's huge , so make sure you have the room . PS, we live in the philippines so I was worried it wouldn't work here . But my husband has a VPN account so We didn't have any problem loooking for the app to use on his iPad . But when I tried looking for it in mine the app wouldn't show up. Overall a great toy. Just a bit terrifying once you hear the dreaded error message .

This has been by far one of the best gifts we have given to our five year old daughter. She can easily use the commands and she has played with it non stop since opening it. It's a steep price but well worth for hours of playtime. Every room has multiple lights and actions. And the voice recognition is great.

It's seems awesome! But the stairs don't really work. I fix it, but the next time we play with it, the stairs mess up again! It's very cool, but it was a big waste of my money! I'm an a 11 and 1/2 year old girl, and even I am not satisfied!! I saved a lot for it but it's not worth it! Don't waste your money on it!!!!!

I was very impressed with this house. Me and my daughter both love it. Even without the wifi enabled the thirteen buttons throughout the house do some extremely cool features. The voice recognition is very high. Setup was very easy. Cons- I found I had to place the Barbie house in the same room as my wireless router to get a signal strong enough. Sometimes the house divisions will come apart so the power connections will get separated and not power that section. This dreamhouse is the most "smart" item in my home.

Very Satisfied! Ordered on the Friday and received the following Tuesday morning with regular shipping.

I purchased this $300 Barbie Hello Dreamhouse for a Christmas present for my daughter, completely unaware that the fine print on the box indicated that the interactive features on the house (the main selling feature of the house) would not longer operate after April 2019! We have now received notice that PullString has discontinued services with Mattel. My daughter is unbelievably disappointed. The $30 Barbie dentist set that Mattel is sending my daughter does not even begin to compensate for the $300 dreamhouse that is now a $100 basic dreamhouse that I guarantee she will be interested in playing play with! We would NEVER have bought this product had we been properly informed that this would happen. This situation is like buying a brand new iPhone and then being told by Apple a year later that you cannot use wifi or data on it! We will no longer be buying any Mattel products for our kids.

Once setup and updated this doll house is amazing and after gett My google home my daughter loves how similar the house is to it’s commands. Only drawback so far is the wifi for the house seems to have very limited range or issues as it is within 10 feet from my modem and randomly loses connection. Other then that it seems to be well built and a great addition to my daughters playtime. House also seems to only respond to children/women as when I talk to it the commands fail 90% or the time where it works great with my wife and 5 year old.

My kids like it but i can't see it lasting very long. The stairs have already broken after a month of having it, and the automated controls are just one more thing that can go wrong. Our last barbie house was all wood and lasted us for 5 years!