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DeskPets' CarBot is a little iOS-controlled car
The Parrot Quadricopter is probably the coolest thing you can control with your iPhone, but not all of us are willing to shell out $300 for a fully equipped airborne vehicle. For the rest of us, however, a company named DeskPets has released CarBot, a much more affordable (under $30) little four-wheeled vehicle, easily controlled with a free iPhone app. The company kindly sent TUAW a unit to test, and I ran the little robot through its paces, using my iPhone 5 to control the little guy around my Los Angeles apartment. Setup is a little overwhelming when you first get the car's plastic packaging open, just because it seems like there are more than a few different working parts involved. But once you figure it all out, it's actually pretty simple. The car comes all ready to go, green and translucent and packed with circuitry and gears. There's a little adapter that plugs into the headphone slot on your iDevice (I plugged it into the bottom of my iPhone 5 and into the top of my iPad without having to even remove either one's case). Both the adapter and the car need to be switched on (by holding down the car's only button for a few seconds, and then flipping the switch on the adapter), and then you simply pull up the free iPhone app and you're ready to go. The car has four different modes. The first is the standard driving mode, where you can use onscreen controls to move the car forwards and backwards, blow an on-board (digital) horn, or turn the car left or right. There's a small switch underneath the car with three frequency settings, so if you're using multiple cars, you can set up each iPhone to control separate frequencies. But on the first mode, you can simply drive the car around. On my carpet floors, the car drove just fine, though not as well as on linoleum or tile, obviously. The second mode is a multiplayer battle, for use only when you have more than one car. I didn't get to try this mode out, but it sounds fun: You can use a "Fire" button on the iPhone to "fire" an infrared shot from the car. Hitting another car will decrease its life meter. There's also a "Boost" button, which the manual says will give you a quick burst of speed (though given how small these cars are, that might be hard to tell). The third mode is called "obstacle detection" mode, and is designed to be used with another add-on called the MazeBot, which is yet to be released and presumably will let you build a maze for the car to navigate by itself. The last mode was almost the most interesting one for me. It's an "Autonomous Personality Mode", and it allows the car to navigate around by itself, free-roaming around whatever environment it's in. I had fun just watching the little car try to navigate my apartment like a Roomba, but this mode is really designed to be used with the multiplayer mode, basically to give you a non-player opponent to battle against. Unfortunately, the CarBot's worst quality is that it's far from accurate -- not only is the car rather clumsy (though I was impressed with how well it was able to navigate and move around the various environments I placed it in), but the iPhone's touchscreen controls are completely binary, in that you're either turning left, turning right or not turning at all. Likewise, you either are moving forward, backward or not moving, so if you're looking to make precision turns or drive at a dynamic speed, you're out of luck. The other big issue is that the car isn't controlled with Bluetooth -- instead, the controls are passed to the car completely through an IR port on the adapter. This means that it requires line of sight to operate, so if your hand blocks the signal or the car happens to pass out of the room at any time, you'll lose the connection. It's definitely weird that DeskPets didn't choose to go with Bluetooth, given how easily Apple has made using that protocol for app developers, but for whatever reason, it's all IR, with all of the issues that entails. Still, for $30 the CarBot seems like a great present, and it definitely does what it says on the box: Gives you a small remote-controlled car that you can drive around with your iPhone. There are some minor issues, like that choice to use IR and a generally terribly designed app. However, driving around this little car is so much fun, and the price is so easy to handle, that I ended up shrugging most of those issues off and just having a great time. If you're putting your Christmas lists together this year already, the CarBot might be a nice addition for the iPhone user in your family.
CarBot lets you settle those grudges with battle mode
If you prefer your robots a little more terrestrial, there's Desk Pets' CarBot, a buggy that can do tricks, navigate mazes, and race with -- or fire on -- your buddies. The cars can be controlled by a free app installed on any iOS or Android Device, and allow up to four players to duke it out in multiple play modes. For mayhem lovers the most popular may be "battle," allowing you to fire on rival cars to disable them, along with a personality mode for freestyling and a drift 'n' race option. There's even a maze mode, in which the tiny wheeled bots use their infrared sensors to avoid objects with "military precision," according to the company. The built-in battery will give you 25 minutes of playtime for every 45 minutes of USB-based juicing, and each CarBot will set you back $30. Check out the PR and video after the break to let the rolling deathmatch commence.
Desk Pets' TankBot rolls out with Android and iOS support, is the tiny racer in your hand
Lonely and living in the city, but don't have the patience or maturity for Man's Best Friend? Well, you could always take a TankBot under your wing. Desk Pets' palm-sized four-wheeler first whirred into our hands earlier this year at the International Toy Fair, promising a variety of play modes and iOS control. Now, the team behind the roving gizmo has finally released it to retailers' shelves, tacking on a $25 price tag and adding Android compatibility. The mini-bot operates in a trio of configurations: an autonomous mode that makes use of its infrared sensors to navigate obstacles, a free-roaming option that'll have it wandering aimlessly and, most importantly, a free mobile app that puts dual joystick control on your Apple device's screen or universal remote (connected via headphone jack) for steering on an Android phone. Don't expect to squeeze hours of fun out of this little tchotchke, though, as its retractable USB port only gets you about 15 minutes of gee whizzery. Skip past the break to watch a video demo of the lil' guy en vivo.
Desk Pets TankBot hands-on (video)
Although we've only gotten a glimpse of a TankBot as a render, we were more than interested to see this robot toy doing its thing in the real world. We spotted these tiny desk pals at the International Toy Fair and got to take a look at some working prototypes. As we reported earlier, the TankBots have three functioning modes -- autonomous, maze solving and iOS controlled. The bots feature LED eyes and two infrared transmitters -- that's how it solves the mazes. Charging is done by plugging in the USB dongle found on the rear of the tank and you'll get 15 minutes of battery life after a 30 minute charge. And if you're wondering how your iOS device will play with the TankBots, a free app will be available to download and each toy will come bundled with an infrared dongle. You can grab TankBots from stores for 20 bucks come June. Head past the break to see some cute, yet impressive maze-solving in action. %Gallery-116612%
Desk Pets to roll out iOS-controlled TankBot this June
There's unfortunately no pictures or video of it in action just yet, but it looks like Desk Pets is getting set to join Parrot and its AR.Drone in the wild world of toys controlled by iOS devices. That comes in the form of the company's forthcoming TankBot, which can not only be controlled by your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, but by gestures thanks to its built-in IR sensors -- it'll also operate autonomously in its maze navigation or free roaming modes, for good measure. Look for this one to be available in June for "under $20" in your choice of four different colors.
