We Tried It! The Crayola Digital Light Designer Spinning Light Canvas (A Mom’s Thoughts)


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The Crayola Digital Light Designer is a hot new product for little artists that gives kids the power to write or draw with light. Kids can draw all around the dark dome then apply special effects (spinning, color-changing, etc), save their creations, play built-in games, and even make movies with it!

So what are our thoughts on it? Weve been playing around with this since we received it a couple weeks ago, my daughter Emma asking to use it every day (a good sign!), and have quite a few pros and cons to share. Most of the cons are things that affected me but not Emma, so keep that in mind if its a gift for your child. 🙂

Quick Overview: This is basically a mini computerized art studio, faintly reminiscent of the old Lite Brites I had when I was a kid. Its simple in that you draw with dots of light, but there are many things you can do to make it more fun than just a drawing dome. It has a lot of cool factor because there are games, special effects, and movies you can make. And its a touch screen (with the stylus only of course)! To navigate you use menus and icons just like on a regular computer:

What We Like:

First, theres no mess involved. Thats always a plus!

Replayability? Emma has asked to play with it every day so its stayed on the table ready to play with for weeks with all the activities available, youll not quickly become bored with it.

Free draw is our favorite activity, and the spinning and color-changing special effects are most-used here. You can draw a very long picture and then turn off the lights and watch it spin around its gorgeous!

As far as the actual drawing goes, you do have to go back to the menu often if youre changing colors a lot, but you learn to move fast. The stylus is chunky and easy to grasp, and is used by touching the dome directly, or if you push the button on the stylus while drawing you can stay about a half-inch away from the screen and draw without touching it.

The dome is very sturdy and doesnt slip on hard surfaces. It does have to be on a hard flat surface like a table to work (if you pick it up it will turn off, but when you put it back down it will resume where you left off).

One of my little creations any Doctor Who fans here? 🙂

What We Didnt Like:

It makes a whirring noise that you get used to, but it was surprising at first. You can hear it in my video below. I dont know that its something we dont like exactly (I dont mind it at all) but some might find it annoying. Emma didnt.

Theres no undo button. If you make a mistake you have to go select the color that will fix it and draw over it which can be time-consuming. For the perfectionist, anyway. 😉

This is another thing that I dont love that doesnt affect my daughters play the batteries. It takes a ton! The dome takes four D batteries and the stylus takes two AAA batteries. If giving this as a gift you wont want to forget to include those (and maybe some extras what the hey, just run to Costco and get them in bulk!).

My Video Demo:

Final Thoughts: The cons didnt outweigh the benefits of the Digital Light Designer for us its very popular in our house! I would recommend this for kids who love to paint and draw (itll save you paper!) and will appreciate the computer-like setup and special effects. Since my daughter is 4 and loves it (and can play with it independently), Ill recommend this for ages 4 and up.

Want It?

You can purchase the Crayola Digital Light Designer online for $49.99 and free shipping at CrayolaStore.com. You can also check it out at Amazon.com by clicking here. Also, at the time of this post its on sale for $39.99 at Target.

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The Crayola Digital Light Designer reviewed in this post along with the information on the product have been provided by Crayola.