MOONLITE STORY TIME

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We had the sweetest delivery this week. Something for bedtime called Moonlite arrived, in a big white box, and with a furry friend too.  Everything was so cute, I couldn’t stop taking photos of it all.  The colours, the packaging – everything felt like a picture perfect bedtime ready to happen.  After the Care Bears incident, Hero and I decided that the beautiful bear in the parcel was going to live in our room as it only seemed fair, but the rest we could share.  

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Bedtime  Reading

So, if you take a peep above in the photos, the pretty box was from Moonlite.  It couldn’t have been a better-timed delivery – it’s turning back the clock time this weekend – and that means darker evenings, and snuggly, cosy bedtimes with my little Joneses.  

Jensen is busy reading Harry Potter books with Gav, but Lyoto and Hero are still very much in love with traditional picture books at bedtime, and still love being read to [as do I, haha].  That’s not to say they don’t also love watching Gorgeous Movies YouTube videos on the iPad too, given the chance at bedtime, but we do try to make sure they are read to every night and it’s rare that they aren’t.      

So, we were sent Moonlite to try out this Autumn – a gorgeous and super cute little projector system which reminds me of my big red 1980’s 3D Viewmaster…except there are no Muppets on this one.  

So what is it?  Well, Moonlite is an innovative new story projector for mobile phones, bringing well loved tales to life on the walls and ceilings of their bedrooms and making bedtimes more appealing as the darker nights draw in. It’s already an award-winning creation which brings a modern twist to traditional storytelling, and we were really excited to try it out.

Moonlite launches in the UK this month, and it’s a small device which clips onto your smartphone and then uses the torch to project vibrant storybook images onto any surface – in our case, the ceiling and wall of the bedroom as they’re both plain.  

What makes Moonlite special is that whilst the story is being projected onto the surface, the story text is displayed over 12 pages per story on the app, whilst sweet and charming music and sound effects are played, creating a special story time experience for everyone. It’s been designed specially to be soothing and calming, and so automatically operates in Night Shift mode too.

There are so many stories to choose from already – classic stories such as the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Beatrix Potter’s the Tale of Peter Rabbit.  We even have Dinosaur ROAR! Which is one of Lyoto’s favourite books of all time.

HOW MOONLITE WORKS

Moonlite is very easy to set up and use – and ours stays on the bedroom shelf now, ready!  There are four easy steps to bedtime stories:

1. Download the free Moonlite App from the App Store or Google Play Store
2. Pop a story reel into the Moonlite projector making sure slide 1 is on the marker
3. Open the Moonlite App and unlock the story with the included activation code [in your story reel pack]
4. Attach the Moonlite projector to your phone with the crosshairs matching the bullseye on the app [you’ll see when you open the app] and start reading!

The app is very good and takes you through each step, so there’s no need to panic.

The concept it just brilliant.  I love the idea of a little bedtime theatre that’s not as stimulating as constant moving images.  There’s no craning of necks to see the pictures on a page and everyone can lie back and enjoy the story being told.

Everything was easy to set up – to create an account it was simply email and password creation and an opt-in of newsletters if wanted, and then the activation codes for stories.  It took me around 5 minutes from opening the box to being ready to attach the projector.

That being said, we did have a few issues. 

The concept and design.  Everything is beautifully made and aesthetically pleasing and I could see myself collecting the little story reels especially if there was a subscription available.

I loved that the text flicked through on each page highlighting the paragraph being read and the sound effects, although few in some stories, were a really fun touch.

The lullaby music was so calming and the boys enjoyed that too.

Having a little theatre in our bedroom was lots of fun and made bedtime more magical – the boys had all cleaned their teeth in record time and there was no messing about getting into bed for a change!

That no one was complaining that they couldn’t see the pages as it was right up there on the wall!

It was less easy to slip out of place and more easy to rectify this once it happens.  I have an iPhone 8 and removed the protective case I use so that there was nothing stopping the projector lying flush with the torch on my phone.  However, the images weren’t crisp all over and had blurry parts on them despite anything I did to adjust it, and when turning the dial it frequently came away from the correct place and stopped the telling of the story whilst I tried to line it all up again.  I couldn’t help but think that it would be better more firmly fixed in place with something like the attachments that JOBY use for holding phones onto their rigs which would easily prevent this from happening.

The music was beautiful lullaby music and very calming – but completely overpowering of most of the sound effects in the stories. 

There were more sound effects in the stories.

Punctuation.  The speech punctuation irritated me with missing commas and full stops, but that’s just me being very picky.

Moonlite really does add that extra touch of magic to storytelling and bridges beautifully the gap between traditional books and digital apps; The boys enjoyed being able to use the little projector with me, and I loved having a phone to hold instead of having to reach around two boys’ shoulders to turn the pages of books.  However, for me to want to buy more of them, the focus of the images needs to be clearer and the slipping issue would need to be addressed.  

Thank you, Moonlite for our gorgeous parcel – we’re delighted to have it and the boys are enchanted by bedtimes again!

We were sent the Moonlite package for the purposes of review. All opinions are our own.