Miko Robot Review

How much does Miko cost?

• Miko 3: $299 on Miko's site. The bigger robot, with a 720p touchscreen face, a camera, a speaker and wheels for rolling around on a flat floor. Stores discount it: Costco listed it at $189.99 in July 2026, out of stock.
• Miko Mini: $199 list price, shown at $149 when we checked. A smaller, cheaper robot.
• Miko Max subscription: $14.99 a month or $99 a year. The Gadgeteer's review from March 2025 lists the yearly plan at $180, so the price has changed before.

At Miko's own prices, a Miko 3 with a year of Miko Max comes to $398 before tax.

What do you get without Miko Max?

Not much, going by The Gadgeteer's list from 2025: a spelling game, one module or story in each learning section, a dance game, a few Disney and Paramount stories, and app locking. Progress reports and most parental controls stay limited until you pay. Miko's help center has its own page on what is included without Max. Read it before you buy, because the list changes.

Max unlocks what Miko calls "1000+ games, educational videos, stories, puzzles, music, coding, yoga," including licensed content from Disney, Paramount and other partners.

How old should a kid be?

Miko's safety page says the robot is "tuned specifically for ages 5–10." Younger kids may not be understood: The Gadgeteer's reviewer said Miko had a hard time registering "any of his speech at all" when his son, about three, tried to talk to it. At the other end, a ten- or eleven-year-old is likely to find the content young.

Is Miko safe? What happened in February 2026

On February 12, 2026, NBC News reported that Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal had written to Miko after their staff found a public database of audio from Miko 3 robots. NBC looked at it and found thousands of the robot's spoken replies to children, going back to December 2025. The children's own voices were not in it, but several files used a child's name, so a listener could follow what that child had been asking about. Miko took the dataset down after the letter. Its founder, Sneh Vaswani, told NBC that "there has been no breach or leak of user data" and that "Miko does not store children's voice recordings."

On February 16, Miko announced an on/off switch for open-ended AI conversation on Miko 3 and Miko Mini. Owners can turn free conversation off in the Miko Parents app, and new robots ship with it off. With it off, the robot keeps its stories, quizzes, math practice, music and movement games. We did not find Miko's written answer to the senators.

Miko's privacy policy, updated March 30, 2026, says:

• The robot listens all the time for "Hey, Miko."
• After the wake word, recordings of what your kid says go to Miko's servers to be turned into text. Miko says the audio is deleted right after that.
• Voices of other people in the room can be picked up too.
• You can cover the camera or switch it off in the app, and you can delete your family's data.

Miko says it follows the U.S. law on children's online privacy, and its robots carry the kidSAFE Seal. In their letter, the senators asked what testing kidSAFE did before it certified Miko.

What parents like and what they complain about

What kids enjoy. The licensed stories and some of the games. The Gadgeteer's son loved the Disney stories and the video chat, and some games "got genuine laughs and extended use." The robot survived several falls off a table.

The subscription. A Trustpilot reviewer wrote that most of the interesting content can't be reached without one. A complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau describes a $99 charge the buyer says they never agreed to.

Refunds. One buyer summed up their experience as "no refund policy." Read the return terms on the day you order and note when the window closes.

The battery. The Gadgeteer found that a robot switched off at half charge was "often dead the next day," and kept it on the charger.

What it is. The Gadgeteer called Miko 3 "a small tablet dressed as a robot" and found its chatbot slow and easy to confuse. If you are trying to cut screen time, count Miko as a screen.

What to check before you buy

1. Add the subscription to the price and compare the first-year total, not the robot alone.
2. Turn auto-renewal off, or put the renewal date in your calendar.
3. Decide whether you want open-ended AI conversation on, and check that setting in the Miko Parents app on the first day.
4. Set the robot up before your kid sees it. Charging, the app, pairing and parent verification took The Gadgeteer at least half an hour.
5. Ask what your kid will do with it in week six. Novelty wearing off is the usual reason these toys end up on a shelf.
6. Remember that the robot depends on the company's servers. When Embodied, the maker of the Moxie robot, shut its servers down on January 30, 2025, most Moxies stopped working.

Miko alternatives

Pick by what you want the robot for.

• Stories and music without a screen. Audio players such as the Yoto Player play stories from cards, and the Yoto Player has no camera and no microphone.
• Learning to code. Programmable robots such as Wonder Workshop's Dash (about $180 at resellers, listed for ages 6 to 11) or Sphero BOLT teach programming through free apps. They don't hold a conversation.
• A robot to build together. For a family where a parent or a teenager writes code, Reachy Mini is an open-source kit you assemble and program yourself.
• Help with schoolwork. If what you want is help with math or reading, see our comparison of AI tutors for kids.

Sources: miko.ai (product pages, safety page, privacy policy updated March 30, 2026), Miko help center, NBC News (February 12, 2026), The AI Insider on Miko's February 16 announcement, The Gadgeteer's Miko 3 review (March 2025), Trustpilot and Better Business Bureau pages for Miko, Axios on Moxie's shutdown, retailer listings for Costco, Yoto and Dash.