Original BB-8 by Sphero (No Droid Trainer)

I'm a longtime Star Wars fan who is into tech and, yes, hyped for Episode VII. Considering purchasing BB-8? First, have a compatible smartphone and be aware that it recharges via USB. Taking the price of the Sphero alone at about $129, the Star Wars treatment and BB-8 personality (BB-8 head, design and app sounds) are worth the additional cost. Just another opinion in this set of reviews, I can share what I really enjoyed about BB-8: + The design - Some Star Wars desktop statues can go for a much higher cost than this, but this obviously allows you to do so much more than just displaying it on your desktop. + The packaging - simple and secure packaging in a nice design. It's Disney + Star Wars. Easy to start playing with it out of the box. + The accessories - I prefer a USB cable over another AC adapter. The cradle is detailed and provides a secure and clean charging platform for BB-8. The magnetic BB-8 head has wheels to help rotate 360 degrees. + The interactivity - The downloadable app allows you to control BB-8 directly, listen to the cool sounds of BB-8, has a camera to record augmented reality messages and listens to voice commands. Surely will be upgraded in the future with more! It's super fun to direct and control BB-8 around your home for your friends, family, pets and other BB-8s! The charger and BB-8 unit has lights to indicate charging or when BB-8 is being expressive. See the photos I've included for more details. The $149.99 MSRP may be restrictive to some, but if you have some money that you can put into having one piece of Star Wars Episode VII memorabilia, the Sphero BB-8 is something great to consider. I had no problems with operation. Enjoyable and to me, worth it!

This gets 5/5 ot 9/10. First, the bad. Unfortunately, the unit suffers from some mild "false advertising" from what I can see, the toy does not "learn" from your interactions, in any way that I can reasonably tell. Plus, the advertising would lead you to think it has some time of obstacle detection when really it's just an accelerometer (a hard bump will cause it to flash red and it will emote). Finally, I'm not sure it's a criticism or a requirement of the design (probably the latter, friction = coeff*normal force) but the head's magnet is only strong enough for moderate bumps, so about 1/20 times the head can pop off during operation, but still operates fine. The biggest of all of my complaints: the toy has no speakers of it's own, so any noises it makes are completely driven by the app on your mobile device. Now the good. Have you seen how freaking cute this cat is? LOOK HOW HAPPY THIS DROID-LOVING CAT IS. Yes, I'm an undergrad mechanical engineer, and I wanted the toy for science and all that, but I really truly brought this Primarily because I knew it would be THE ULTIMATE CAT TOY. Rick (the cat) absolutely loves it, he stalks it, he sniffs it, he pounces it - and when he pounces it I count a kill if the head comes off. If you have a cat who loves chasing things YOU MUST BUY THIS TOY. The toy is very good on a range of surfaces, but does best on thin carpet. The rollers on the head will collect lint but thats very easy to clean off. The toy is a lot of fun just to hold and mess with, the gyroscope tries to keep the unit "upright" while it is powered, so you can have fun tossing it up in the air, putting spin on it, etc. - spin it on the kitchen floor like a top, it just keeps going. The app is pretty good, I have not explored all the features, I just use Drive mode and patrol mode. Patrol mode is somewhat OK for enticing the cat but I have found the best tactic for fluffy antagonistic mischief is manual drive - get the droid out of the cats field of vision and he feels inclined to chase after it. At the end of the day, this toy has caused me to create an emotional bond with it, and it is so fantastic that I liken it to the invention of the Ball or Sliced Bread or the advent of Transformer toys. This is one of those once in a generation kind of gadgets, frankly, that will get you excited (or your kids or your cat). If the toy had its own speaker, it would probably be even that much better at amusing the cat!

This looks and moves just like the real BB-8. Gave it to my nephew and he loves it. The built in app has other features like a messaging feature and the BB-8 almost has a mind of its own in the way it moves. All i can say is the kids love it. The size is pretty small, looks bigger in the pictures maybe like the size of croquet ball lol, i guess not that many people know the size of of the croquet ball but it's about 7cm wide but seems wider then that. What's cool is you set it in it's base and it charges via a usb cable, and it says it will go about an hour on a charge. The bad thing is if you have very small kids, the head is on there magnetically so kids can pull it off and chew off the antenna and swallow it accidentally, so it's not for small kids. It's controlled by your ipad/iphone or android device. The app is cool, you can put a message (record a video) and it shows a scene like it's playing your message like how R2D2 played back holographic messages, except it's just simulating it on the phone or tablet. You control bb-8 through the phone/ipad as well but it can be controlled by voice as well. The movement looks just like BB-8 so it's pretty cool watching the head moving around and stuff.

Bought this for grandchildren and think they will have fun with it. Reason for three stars is that I find on thick pile or even some thin carpets that it slows to a crawl if it moves at all. I have wall to wall carpeting with orientals and it has trouble climbing from the wall to wall onto an oriental. But on hardwood or other had flooring it is a speedy little droid. No instructions come with the droid other than pictures that do not tell you much. You can go on their site and click on links and only then will you find some useful information e.g., that you are supposed to set it on hard surface and attach head until magnets find it, that you need a full charge before first use, that it has a lithium battery so unlike NiCad does not need to be drained before recharging. That there is a reset button the side of the base. Have not had to use it but only found reference to that in comments under their link, not in link itself. That the charge to play ratio is 3:1 e.g., 3 hours of charging to 1 hour of play. The user manual unfortunately is filled with little but warnings and cautions and while that is useful an operating manual would be very helpful. I am still not sure I have found all the features. Sent an e mail to support about this and got no response other than an e mail telling me issue was solved! Not terribly supportive! I printed out the page from the links on their support page on the voice commands but an operating manual with all these that you could print would be a big help. Obviously you cannot be looking at their links at the same time you are operating the droid. Some have pointed out that it is small but I have no problem with that. Younger children will find easier to handle and on hard floors it does run like crazy. Wondered what my dog, a Jack Russell, would think of it but he tends to ignore it. Watches it go by but does not find interesting enough to chase. More curious than anything but leaves it alone. Have not had problem of head falling off that others have mentioned but can see if hit a wall or table leg at top speed how that could happen. I agree with comments that camera on the droid would have been nice feature but I do not find the fact that sound is on the app device bothers me. The hologram feature is interesting but limited in the built in features. I agree with those commenting that it does not seem to have any learning or adaptive features; if so I have not found them. True it will change directions if runs into an obstacle but it does not seem to learn anything in the process. Not sure what they are talking about when they say it learns and adapts. On the whole it is a fun toy even though pricey. Will be interested to see how my grandchildren like it and whether it is something they will play with or tire of it quickly. They say they will be adding features and will look forward to those upgrades. Added post Christmas. Gave this item to my adult son for Christmas to play with his young daughters. Found that they have added some added features. Before the only hologram was a figure but now they have added a starfighter. Of course you can add your own. Also they have added several new features in the drive setting. Wish they had BB-8 talking or making sounds more than it does. Know some are bothered by sounds not coming from BB-8 but the device used to control it but while that would be nice it does not bother me. The adults had fun playing with it and grandkids enjoyed watching and eventually they will learn to use it as well. Dogs (more than one at Christmas) just ignored it which is probably good! I was bit concerned that for the price this would be a one hour wonder. Fun for first hour and then put away. But that was not the case so far. As for size we all liked the smaller size. One thing we did find that it was easiest to wake up BB-8 either on its stand or on a table. Putting on floor you have to bend over too long for it to initialize. You have to hold the control app close to BB-8 to get it started. Once it is wake and ready to go putting on floor then works fine. As noted above works best on hardwood or other hard flooring and on some of my thicker carpets it would not go at all. Because of the fun my son and my daughter's boyfriend had with this at Christmas I am raising my stars from 3 to 4. Reason for only four is that support needs to be better and they need an operating manual although perhaps until they finish adding features you would have to update that but even an operating manual now with occasional supplement and revision would be helpful. Not all the features are intuitive or covered on their site. And using your app device to control it you cannot be going back and forth to the links for information if needed. Plus not everything is included there.

I bought the Sphero BB-8 for my son for his 5th Birthday. The timing of the new Star Wars movie relative to his December birthday could not have been better. I took him to see the movie, and then he received the Sphero BB-8 at the birthday dinner that followed. His reaction was priceless - and alone was worth the purchase. But it gets better. This toy is incredibly fun to play with - and my 5-year old son immediately was able to control it with ease. The interface is that intuitive. The droid moves and reacts as the movie's BB-8 - because it's essentially just a scaled down version of the original. The preprogrammed behaviors are a lot of fun for my son as well, and the visual effects using your tablet (iPad Mini 2 in our case) or phone are pretty darn cool! This toy is incredibly well thought out, engineered and produced. To answer the critique that you need a near 'sterile' environment to operate this toy - that is bunk. My son's carpeted bedroom is anything but sterile, and while this toy responds more sluggishly on carpet - it still moves around without any major issues. The only surfaces I would avoid running this on would be concrete, and some types of tile, due to the fact the harder surfaces will degrade the polymer decal on the body of the droid. The only thing I can think of that I would critique about this toy is that it's a lot of fun for adults too. Thankfully, my son has a relatively early bed time - so I can get some BB-8 time in without frustrating a busy 5-year old.

Fun to play with

I waited impatiently to get my own Sphero BB-8 App-Enabled Droid! I had watched the Sphero product videos and was amazed at what this cute little guy can do. I'm a gadget nerd and had to get my hands on this! Unfortunately, my expectations were too high. First, let me start off by saying BB-8 is very cute. That part is true. I love the look, the design and the shiny finish. It is made of plastic, but appears to be good quality. It's very user friendly and you can be playing with BB-8 within minutes. The only set-up required is to charge BB-8 and download the app. What can BB-8 do? Once you download the free app, you can: "Drive" This feature of the app lets you control BB-8 as if you were using a joystick. "Message" Record and play holographic messages. "Patrol" When you select patrol, BB-8 goes exploring on his own. BB-8 has the capability of responding to 10 preset voice commands by going to the settings in the app, such as "wake up", "watch out", "go explore" "go to sleep". I was expecting more than 10 voice commands. Siri has spoiled me. I have heard, but cannot verify, that the voice commands only work with iOS devices. If this is accurate, that's a huge drawback for anyone without an iPhone or iPad. BB-8 is very cute (I know, I'm saying it again), has a great personality and is entertaining to watch as he rolls across the floor. That is about the extent of the entertainment. I feel I was misled by the promotional videos. I was under the impression that BB-8 can "detect" when he is going to run into an object, stop himself and change directions; or, perhaps, adapt to his surroundings and learn where objects are. My impression of this came from the part in one of the promotional videos where BB-8 rolls up to a fishbowl with a goldfish in it, stops before hitting it and changes direction. When I set BB-8 to "patrol", he wobbles around a bit, rolls quickly across the floor, hits a wall or other object, wobbles around again, rolls across the floor, hits another object, etc. It's entertaining to watch and the expressive sounds are fun, but after about 5 minutes I'm bored. The worst part of this is BB-8's head falls off frequently when running into an object so I'm constantly following him around to put it back on. Also, if you have stairs in your house as I do, watch out! BB-8 will roll right down the stairs and I'm not sure if he's sturdy enough to bounce down the stairs and land on a tile floor without breaking. I've "saved" BB-8 an untimely death a few times now. Again, this falls under my misunderstanding of thinking BB-8 will adapt to his surroundings or detect a drop off. I have a robotic vacuum that didn't cost much more than BB-8 and has that very capability. It knows to turn around to avoid crashing down the stairs. It also vacuums right up to the edge of walls and furniture, but never actually touches it. Hmmmm....... Next is the issue with the sound. Again, my expectations being different than reality. I thought the sounds would come from BB-8, when really the sounds all come from your smartphone. Very disappointing! I'll set BB-8 on "patrol", set my smartphone down in one room and let BB-8 go explore the house. I don't get the enjoyment of hearing the sounds if I don't carry my phone with me and it's not as realistic even if your phone is right next to BB-8 because you can easily tell no sound is coming from him. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment. Finally, the holographic messages. I thought it would be like in the movie and BB-8 would project a recorded message onto the wall or what-not and play the recorded message. The message only shows up on your smartphone. When using the app through a Motorola smartphone (and others), this feature doesn't work at all. I don't know if it's something that there will be a fix for in the future? It does work on an iPhone and other devices, but is still disappointing that BB-8 isn't really projecting anything. This is a very expensive toy and the novelty wears off very fast, especially if you're expecting something more and it doesn't deliver. If you're a Star Wars Memorabilia collector, you've probably made up your mind and probably should purchase it. If you're like me and love Star Wars but aren't a collector and/or your a gadget nerd like me, you'll probably be disappointed. There's not much to it besides watching it roll around the floor, crashing into things. To summarize the Pros: Very Cute! Realistic looking miniature version of BB-8 Great novelty item for Star Wars Collectors Cool Gadget Easy Set-Up Fun Sound Effects To summarize the Cons: Entertainment won't last long Doesn't detect obstacles or objects in it's way Head falls off Doesn't sense drops to prevent it from falling down the stairs Sound doesn't come from droid Holographic messages are really just a video on your smartphone ~ if your smartphone is compatible Only 10 voice commands Voice commands may only work with iOS devices Price is too high for what you really get

GREAT ITEM

Ótimo produto. Uma pena não ter à venda, no Brasil, os outros droides. Há alguma previsão para isso? Aguardo retorno.

Nice option and great quality Thank you it was a great birthday surprise for my 7 years son.

My seven year old daughter is saying dad " Will my new friend grow big as I am growing? " Thanks amazon.

本物みたいな動きが出来るので、大満足です。 子どもが追っかけて、競争してます。

Es un juguete muy bonito, llego en tiempo y excelentes condiciones, el tamaño no es muy grande, tiene la altrua de un iPhone Plus, pero para un rato de diversion o como anexo de tu coleccion es exclente.