VdoBug Review

When I first started doing reviews, I knew that there would occasionally be products that would not work for me and that I would not like. I could just ignore those products, and keep doing reviews of products that I liked...but then I would not be credible. Do I enjoy posting reviews that are less than wonderful? No...but it is important.

I was sent a VdoBug to review and was not at all pleased with the results I experienced. A VdoBug is a lady bug shaped children's DVD remote that works with specific DVD's from the VdoBug company.

The remote itself is super cute...and very nice in size, making it perfect for a child to hold. The buttons are large and colorful and the whole remote is very eye-catching. My two year old was eager to try it out!

I was planning to keep this remote at my parent's house for my daughter to use when she visited them. We do not have a TV here at our house so I thought it would be a perfect toy for grandma's house.

When I opened the package, I was met with simple directions explaining how to program the remote to work with my DVD player. The programming was simple and in moments, the VdoBug was programmed and ready to use. The DVD that I was sent that was made specifically for VdoBug was in the player. However, when the DVD started and the first menu came up where I was prompted to select English or Spanish as the language, I selected "E" for English but nothing happened. The screen stayed up requesting me to select English or Spanish. The DVD would not respond to the VdoBug. I figured that I had programmed the VdoBug incorrectly, so I re-programmed it. After about 3 different attempts to program the remote, I went online and watched the tutorial on how to program the remote. I was not surprised to see that I had done everything correctly...yet the remote still would not work. I headed back to the TV to see if I could get it to work again. Still, no luck. The funny thing was, the regular DVD remote worked fine with the DVD.

After about 45 minutes of frustration, I gave up. I was mainly frustrated because the programming was supposed to be simple, yet I had spent a good portion of time trying to get mine to work and had no success. I decided to write the company to see if there was anything they could do or tell me to get the remote working properly. I was informed by them that it might be the DVD player and that I should try a different player. "Ok, that sounds easy...I will do that." My dad has 3 different DVD players at his house so I went back about a week later to re-try my VdoBug. I was very optimistic...I was hopeful that this time, I would be able to get the VdoBug working. BUT, it didn't work again. Because of this, I cannot even tell you what the DVD was about as I never got to see it all the way through. So, after two separate attempts to get the remote to work, I gave up.

I emailed the company once again telling them of my issues with the VdoBug, but never heard back from them...which was disappointing.

I was disappointed with my experience with the VdoBug...my daughter was so excited when she actually got to push the buttons. But, it just didn't work properly for me...and I don't think I will ever know why.

So, in my opinion...I would not purchase nor recommend this product for anyone purely because of the programming issues. The VdoBug itself is cute and ideally, it is a great idea. But, because of the difficulties I had with it and lack of communication from the company when I experienced the problems, it just isn't worth the money.

Disclaimer: I received no monetary compensation for this post. I did receive a free VdoBug for review purposes. All quotes are from the VdoBug website and email. All thoughts and opinions are mine.