Hoppstar

A Camera for the Age at Which Everything Is Worth Photographing.

Give a four-year-old a camera and you will receive, in due course, one hundred and forty photographs of the dog's ear, the underside of a table, and someone's knee. This is not a design flaw. It is arguably the entire point.

Hoppstar makes three of them, and the ladder is sensible. The Rookie is the starting point from age three: large buttons, a removable silicone case that handles being dropped, photo frames, filters and face detection, and deliberately no games, so it stays a camera rather than drifting into being a tablet. The Expert adds a selfie function for the same age group. The Artist, from age five, prints. Actual black and white photographs, roughly eight by five centimetres, straight out of the camera and onto the fridge within seconds.

The thing worth knowing as a parent: photographs are saved to the SD card in the camera and nowhere else. Nothing uploads, nothing syncs, nothing goes anywhere without an adult moving it there. Each camera arrives with a 16GB card, a 2-in-1 lanyard with the charging cable built in, and adapters for micro USB and USB-C. Certified to CE, EN71, RoHS, CCC and MA, with the menu available in thirteen European languages.

The Artist took the TOY Award in 2024, and the Rookie has picked up a Gold Award for Best Lifestyle Toy in Greece, which suggests the appeal travels.

Find more in play, toys and games and across the full baby and kids edit. For present-buying, try children's gifts. More from this part of the world in European makers, and more from independents doing it properly in family-run makers.