Sphero BB-8 App-Enabled Droid Review

Sphero's $150 app-enabled BB-8 Droid is a fun robotic toy, but the novelty wears off once you realize there's not much to do with it beyond driving it around and watching it bump into things.

BB-8

You might recognize the BB-8 from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer.

Base

To charge the internal battery, place the BB-8 on an induction base that doubles as a display stand.

Rolling

The BB-8 uses a combination of motors, gyroscopes, and magnets to scoot around.

Design

The BB-8 looks just like its movie counterpart, but smaller, measuring 4.5 inches tall (including the head) and 2.9 inches wide.

Thinking

The BB-8 is supposed to evolve, but over the course of a week of testing, it hasn't learned much.

Clumsy

The BB-8 has bumped into nearly everything, with a few exceptions where it stalled in front of and then went around a chair.

Head

The BB-8's head constantly fell off during testing. It uses wheels and magnets to swivel around on its spheroid body.

Top

The top of the induction charging base, sans BB-8.

Charge

The induction base's USB charge port.

Dirty

As you can see, the underside of BB-8's head can get quite messy.

Drive

The virtual interface is similar to a video game controller with dual joysticks.

Patrol

Patrol allows the BB-8 to go out and explore on its own, and, purportedly, adapt to its surroundings.

Message

Holographic messages are so blurry, it's difficult to make out who's even talking.

Settings

The Settings section of the app.