Hands-on with the new Wowwee bots
We got a little face time with the folks from Wowwee, who gave us a demo of the upcoming Robosapien RS2 Media and the Roboreptile (the P-Bot was apparently broken, although it miraculously began working just as the Toys 'R' US buyers rolled up the booth). The RS2 still needs a little polish, as the "head" camera was just a digicam in a separate box hardwired to the bot, but the chest-mounted display impressed us considering its diminutive size. Even cooler was the new media/programming software, which allows for endless configuration and actually lets you preview an animated RS2 acting out the commands you want to download to the real deal. Roboreptile felt a little unfinished too, but we liked it's three levels of aggression and the fact that you can satiate it with "food" or by covering its head with a cowl. Guess we'll have to wait to play with the P-Bot until we see it at T'R'U. More images after the jump...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tempusmaster @ Jan 8th 2006 1:08AM
I'm really curious about how good the LCD screen in its chest really is. I've been following the Robosapien series and reporting on my blog ( http://www.robots-dreams.com ) since I developed a PC based remote control for the original robot. The multimedia functions in the RSmedia are very interesting but don't seem to connect to the outside world real time. Did they mention anyway to send the camera video to your cell phone or other external receiver? Users will definitely want to see what their robot sees, but not if they are limited to watching it via his chest display.
Other reports ( http://www.robots-dreams.com/2006/01/more_on_the_new.html )have pegged the RSmedia pricing at around USD$350, which seems pretty steep compared to the V2 unless there's a much richer feature set than just adding the LCD chest display, so I'm hoping they will deliver more bang for the buck by the time it hits the store shelves.
roboreptile @ Jan 8th 2006 2:27AM
Will the Robosapien RS Media have better interaction with the other WowWee robots than the Robosapien RV2 did? The Robosapien RV2 had short canned scripts with the Roboraptor and Robopet with a few slight variations. I am hoping that the Robosapien RS Media will have a greater capability to interact with other WowWee robots, and hopefully user programmable interactions.
If so, please do an follow-up piece so I can update my Robosapien RS media page:
http://www.robotsrule.com/html/robosapien-rs-media.php
Note to other readers: The Robosapien RS Media is *not* the Robosapien V3, which hasn't even been previewed yet. If you have any inside tips, pictures, or information to share, please visit the Robosapien RS Media forum:
http://www.roboburp.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=14
Knitsu @ Jan 8th 2006 3:00AM
I cant wait for these robots to come out, i've being a Wow Wee fan for the past 2-3 years and have all their Robots
Now im just starting to get into the UnOfficial Wow Wee Repair business, fixing some of their V2 Robots for users/hacker's who have broke their robot and need replacement parts, or need someone skilled to repair it....
When do you think we can see video??
-KnitsU
http://evosapien.com/robosapien-hack/knitsu/