On the outside it’s a ball but on the
inside it’s a sophisticated, app-controlled robot. Jools White horn spends four
weeks with the most futuristic, most spherical toy in town…
Price: $170.5
Website: gosphero.com
Despite appearances this isn’t just a ball
– it’s a polycarbonate-clad robot, controlled via iOS and Android app. That
translucent shell takes plenty of punishment and surface swirls give it grip on
land and water alike (yes, it floats) – though it struggles with thick rugs and
bump terrain.
Sphero
LEDs shine out from the Sphero’s
translucent shell to help you pick it out in a crowd. Apps allow you to choose
from any one of 16.8 million hues, making night time rolling seriously
impressive. It’s also a feedback mechanism: the ball will glow red when it’s
time to put it back into the inductive charging cradle.
It takes a little while to get used to
driving (or rolling?) the Sphero. Tight turns and sharp stops are off the menu;
wide corners and lots of anticipation are the key. The driving app allows you
to change speed, or hit the boost button for a sprint. The balls will reach up
to just over 2 mph – faster than it sounds.
Rotate two fingers on the screen and you’ll
see blue light moving around inside the Sphero – simply point it in your
direction to calibrate it. The Sphero does a surprisingly good job of keeping
itself on course, but it needs resetting fairly often after a while it begins
to wander off, like a forgetful spherical granny.
Switch your Sphero on by giving it a good
old shake. The Bluetooth connection is easy to set up, using a clever flashing
color code for pairing (if it’s flashing green-yellow-blue, it’ll show up on
your smartphone as ‘Sphero-GYB’), which means you won’t confuse it with anyone
else’s translucent glowing robot ball.
Straight up ballin’ with Sphero
Water buoy
Not many of our gadgets are waterproof, but
Sphero’s sealed shell means it floats beautifully. Shock friends as you
‘accidentally’ roll it into the pool, then amaze them as you blast it through
the 100 m like a ball shaped Michael Phelps. Pro tip: a strategically placed
rubber band gives it more purchase on the water, helping it paddle faster.
Squaring the sphere
Beginner tinkerers can set Sphero to run
through a list of basic actions with the free MacroLab app. Power programmers
can use the software development kit (SDK) to make it do all sorts of things flashing
Twitter alerts, motion controlling Parrot AR.Drones or synchronized dance
routines with other Spheros are all just the beginning.
The dark light rises
The Internal LED lighting can produce 16.8m
colors and given that the human eye can only see 10m colors, it’s probably get
your favorite hue covered. Setting up multiple balls with separate colors makes
night races great fun, and long exposure photo fans will get hours of fun from
swooping colored balls around in the dark.
Multiplayer melle
While it won’t manage big hill climbs or
scale any surface that’s too lumpy, there’s plenty of amusement to be had with
two Spheros, a mate, and an obstacle course you’ve jury-rigged out of empty
bottles, packs of cereal and used toilet roll. And once you’re done dodging the
toaster, you can mark out a circle and play Sphero sumo too.
Spherious control
As well as being controlled by your phone,
Sphero can itself be a controller. The number of compatible apps is small but
growing, with the likes of Last Fish ($1) letting you use the ball’s
accelerometer and gryometer to move your onscreen character. Throw in AirPlay
and you can control games on your TV with a magic ball. Cool!
Also consider… Parrot AR.Drone 2.0
Price: $455
Website: parrotshopping.com
Parrot
AR.Drone 2.0
Our other favorite futuristic toy at the
moment is this smartphone-controlled quadricopter that beams back 720p HD
footage, and even does flips. It too is open to developers making AR games,
which should be good. Sure, it’s almost three times the price of Sphero but it
does fly, after all…
Stuff says 5/5 stars
Tech specs: Sphero
Outer shell High-impact polycarbonate
Interior Orbotix Smart Robot
Max speed 2mph
Communication Bluetooth (15.3, range)
Charging Induction cradle
Tech
specs: Sphero
Stuff says 4/5 stars
Amazing tech, hardy package. Bags of
programming potential, but for the average user the novelty soon wears off.
Now add these
Sphero Drive
Price: free
With this basic control app you can use
driving controls, draw a route for Sphero to follow and mess around with its
color. The starting point for a whole load of spherical fun.
Sphero
Drive
Sphero Chromo
Price: free
A game that uses the Sphero as a physical
controller – Tilt or Spin your ball around in search of the right hue.
Impressive, but limited more of a demo app than a long lasting game
Sphero Cam
Price: free
This app combines driving mode with camera
controls, allowing you to film your Sphero as you fling it around the world.
Cue thousands of Sphero Vs Cat videos on YouTube.
Shapesynth
Price: $2.5
This polyphonic synthesiser app is a bit
light on instructions but lets you tilt and lift Sphero to adjust frequency
modulation, delay and more in your bleepy compositions.
