Once upon a time in the late ‘90s, Furbies captured our imaginations—and sometimes our nightmares—with their blinking eyes, moving beaks, and eerie ability to “learn.” Now, in 2024, Hasbro has gifted us a new generation of this iconic animatronic. But does the Furby still carry the same mystique, or is it destined for the landfill when it inevitably breaks?
We grabbed our Pro Tech Toolkit, set out our FixMat, and set out to answer a critical question: Is Hasbro’s latest Furby repairable? Spoiler alert: You’re not going to get inside without destroying your toy.
Tearing Down the Furby: Bring a Strong Stomach
The good news: Furby runs on AA batteries, easily changed with a Phillips screwdriver. So you don’t have to do any real disassembly to change a battery—as it should be.
But the Furby’s cuddly coat proved a tougher nut to crack. It’s stitched into plastic brackets held by push-tabs that resist even the thinnest metal spudger and thinnest flathead bit from our Mako Driver Kit.
In what can only be described as a trial of patience, we cut through the stitching and painstakingly worked around the tabs. Elastic bands, Velcro, or snap fasteners would’ve made this process a breeze, but Hasbro’s design opted for frustration instead.
For anyone hoping to clean or replace a Furby coat: it’s a “don’t try this at home” scenario.
Furby’s Mechanical Guts
Once the coat was off, the rest of the teardown progressed more smoothly. A series of screws released Furby’s plastic shell, revealing an intricate network of gears and motors controlling its eyes, ears, and feet. Surprisingly, the internal wiring was modular, with connectors instead of soldered joints—a win for repairability (assuming you’ve made it this far).
The capacitive speaker grill and LED-lit ears were neat design touches, but they also hinted at the toy’s primary focus: aesthetics over longevity.
The Verdict: Cute but Unfixable
After dissecting every piece of this adorable Ewok-Gremlin hybrid, here’s the takeaway: Furby is a delightfully engineered toy designed for assembly-line efficiency, not repairability. Its modular electronics show promise, but the impossibly difficult coat removal process—and the absence of replacement parts—makes meaningful repairs unlikely.
Hasbro’s “surface clean only” policy solidifies Furby’s status as a throwaway item. And that’s a shame. Toys like Furby hold sentimental value for many, but they’re trapped in a cycle of planned obsolescence.
One Comment
Another downpoint not mentioned in the text: the glob-topped IC which gives zero information on what it is exactly. if it fries itself no replacement possible.
Too bad that you don't have connections anymore to those firms that do chip analysises, would have been interesting to know what they use under those splotches of epoxy
masterX244 - Reply