Nex AI-Powered Indoor Family Game Console

The Nex Playground comes in Apple style sleek packaging and is a small cute looking cube in fun pastel colors.
No set up necessary, truly a plug and play system.

The remote is only for navigating menus and selecting options. It’s nice not to have to hold or wear any gear while playing

We tried with 2 players and it tracks both accurately and responsively. It also knows to ignore other people in the background even if they make similar gestures.

The games are good for all ages and engaging. We’ve had a lot of fun playing just in the first 24 hours of owning it. I can see it becoming a stable in family gatherings.

Kids have been having lots of fun, finding the various games hilarious and also beating the grown ups more often than not. Great way to get them active indoors, and much safer with less jumping on and off the furniture. For grown ups, this has been an unexpected cardio workout (in a good way, lol)! Looking forward to lots more active fun. This will also be so handy on rainy or smoky indoor days!
For setting up, the device was much smaller than expected and set up itself was very easy. We also liked that are no extra controllers to buy (or to misplace around the house)!

This thing is awesome! Our 6 year old cannot stop talking about it. I don’t usually like him to play games but this one is active and makes him move around a lot. There are a lot of different games that is also fun for adults to join in. The device itself is compact and very pretty. Super easy to set up and the controls are intuitive. They are also continually coming out with more games, and we are excited for the games coming soon this summer. Highly recommended!

Nex Playground is an innovative and simple motion tracking gaming device made for kids and families. I was introduced to Nex Playground by a parent in my daycare. Initially I was looking for a video game that I can play with my son that doesn’t involve violence and adult themes. However, Nex offers much more than just PG family fun. It also gets you moving and grooving to its vast library of music. Our son is not only finding new ways to interact with TV, he is getting exercise.

The unboxing of Nex was simple and pleasant. It came with everything in the box so you don’t need to buy more cables or batteries. The remote control is even rechargeable. The actual gaming unit is surprisingly small. The box is roughly a 10 inch cube but the actual device is only a 3 inch cube.

Setup is also very intuitive. Like many other devices today, it doesn’t come with any instruction manuals. You just plug in the power and HDMI. A button press on the accompanying joystick will get you to the WiFi setup menu. If you have the Play Pass, you will instantly have access to all the games available. (A Play Pass was provided to us for free) Everything just works right out of the box without figuring things out.

At the time of this review, the Starter pack has 4 games. 22 titles total when purchased with a Play Pass. The main menu also says that 7 games coming soon this summer.

Whack a Mole deluxe is challenging and a good arm workout. Hand tracking is a little slow for fast precise movements. The concept is simple but the developers put surprising amount of depth in the game to keep kids and adults engaged. Later levels features moles with multiple hard hats and fire that can burn your hands.

Goal Keeper is a basic but challenging game. As the name entails, you are a goalie that protects the goal from soccer balls. The game starts with a teenage boy kicking one ball at a time at you. But gradually it becomes a battle between you and a monster robot with multiple cannons for arms that shoots multiple balls at the same time.

Starri is your rhythmic motion game. Expectation was low on the song list but surprisingly it had a huge song library. Artist includeds Dua Lipa, Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, One Republic, etc. I didn’t go through the entire song list but it had your chart topping pop music, electronic music and even bunch of Chinese pop songs. It’s much more than expected.

The fitness program is surprisingly well done. It’s much more than just some basic arm motions repackaged in a fitness form. You can start a profile, pick from one of 50 exercise programs and setup a monthly plan. Other than upper body, you will follow an instructor on doing squats, lunges, sit ups, jumping exercises. You can even workout with dumbbells. Overall, this is a much better program than what came with the Xbox Kinect.

I was most excited about playing the tennis game. As you can imagine, your hand is the racquet and you swing it to hit the ball. However, the hand tracking is not very good in this game. Backhand doesn’t register half of the time and forehand registers late. I think some update to tracking is needed in this game.

Nex Playground is a reimagining of the original Xbox Kinect. It’s simple to use and fun for the whole family. I would highly recommend this device for a family with children.