STAR WARS - Hero Droid BB-8 - Fully Interactive Droid

I have to say that, despite the numerous videos I watched and all positive feedback I read,,, and the negative, I was totally amazed at how well this "toy" works. I shouldn't have been though, it functions exactly as advertised.At times its random behaviors are so convincing, I forget it is only a toy and I have to remind myself that it doesn't actually understand what I'm telling it beyond the 13 voice commands it was programmed with. That fact immediately started the gears grinding in my head and I made an exhaustive internet search for modifications or upgrades for this unit. There's some very good videos on Hackaday on how to take the bugger apart without destroying it but I could find no one so far who has upgraded one.It shouldn't be hard to add a new board provided Spinmaster can provide some schematics on circuitry. I'm half tempted to tackle the project myself if I wasn't so swamped with work that needs to be done. So if you're reading this Spinmaster, don't miss a perfect opportunity to provide upgraded controllers and enhanced functions for those of us willing to pay.That aside, let me address some of my discoveries to confirm what others have already written:- The Head does pop off but for me it only pops off if I slam the droid straight into a hard immovable object like a chair or a wall. Otherwise it stays on better than my own head does.It is good to remember, when you are attaching the head, that there are several magnets holding it to the body; two strong ones, and two weak ones. You have to make sure that you spin the head around so that all the magnets make contact. You'll know that happens when you move the head and the body moves with it.- Voice command mode works best if no one else is talking and you're not in a room with a lot echo. I stood in my hall the first time and issued commands. The sound bounces around in this old house and bb-8's head spun wildly trying to determine the origin of the sound. Light and reflections will ruin the reception of the infrared controls too, so use him (?is he male or female?) inside. If you correct the conditions that interfere with its hearing you'll find that bb-8 responds as well or better than the Amazon Echo and 100 times better than my Legendary Jedi Master Yoda by toynation. No matter what the conditions Yoda's voice recognition is unreliable where bb-8 will turn his head to face you when you talk to him.- Follow mode does work, but you really need room because bb-8 scurries to and fro to keep up with you. Follow mode is the only time I've experience an involuntary head separation (referred here after as IHS). Also clip the controls to your back pocket so he'll stay behind you and not try to climb up your leg.- The controls take a few tries getting used to but they are smooth and very functional. With a little practice I had bb-8 doing figure-8s on a small 3 foot by 4 foot rug and could navigate him in really tight places. The trick is go really slow. The faster he's moving the greater the turning radius you need. I was finally able to turn him 360 degrees in a 2 foot by 2 foot circle taking it really slow.- I got well over an hour during my first run. I stopped keeping track of time after then.- My unit came in really fantastic packaging; an amazon box with another box inside from spinmaster and then finally the actual box. There are some cardboard braces to buffer the ball from bumps and a on top of the ball is another package with the head, controller, manual and antenna. Plenty of packaging tape to cut so have some scissors handy.I was disappointed to find it was not as battle worn as some folks had. I'll have to add more. There is a slight bit of weathering that makes it look like it was used, but I can see by the plastic ball it has never been used. That surface was clean and smooth and the "dirt" in the creases is paint.SOME WARNINGSI bought this to play with my 3 year old granddaughter. She's almost 4 and she loves it. I put it in voice mode and only switch to remote control when she leads it to disaster. I would caution anyone purchasing it not to play with small children with this. It is heavy and has a tendency to get very affectionate and climb on people (what am I saying! It doesn't have emotions!) Luckily my granddaughter is very tall and athletic for her age and it can't harm her though she did admonish him during their first meeting to NOT get in her "space".- Charging the head was a little worrisome for me. To be safe I charged off my desktop the first time and then off a cellphone charger. They only provide you with a USB cable and very ambiguous instructions to plug it into a charger. They don't tell you what type of charge 1.5 A or 2.5 A.Instead of using my charging brick I use a cellphone charger. The reason I don't use a brick and the reason this is listed under WARNINGS is because both mine shutdown once the charge is completed. So, you don't get the green light from the head, which leaves me less confident about the success of the charge.CONCLUSIONSFor the amount of money I paid for this, it was one of the best purchases I've made this year. It is fun for the whole family and it has just enough features to entertain for hours. If I have any regrets about my purchase it is that it is not programmable or upgradeable. But I've seen videos of its deconstruction so, I know it wouldn't be too hard to modify. Perhaps I'll buy another or maybe I'll just wait and see if someone comes along with some mods for this.

To start, I do have to indicate that this review is more of a 9/10, and that I did pay the discounted price of $149 for it, rather than the MSRP.-OverallAll things considered, this thing is great. It perfectly conveys that feeling of having a cute 'lil BB8 rolling around your house and for the price, it's a steal. For $150, its almost worth it just to have as a static display! It moves around fairly decently, and looks pretty good while doing it. The trained eye will certainly see room for improvement, but its not a bad place to start. It certainly has some quirks, but the thing that you need to understand is that unlike R2-D2, there is no single perfect working BB8 in existence. The BB8 shown on the big screen has been a combination of semi-functional robots, static puppets enhanced with CGI, and pure CGI. So, what should you expect out of a compromise solution in bringing BB8 to life? Keep reading.-ScaleOne of the first observations, and my primary observation when purchasing is that this is about 75% scale, instead of full scale. Some might ask, well why bother with a Big BB8 if its not even full scale? I was of that mindset until I saw it in person for the first time. The truth is that the spinmaster BB8 adequately conveys the feeling of having a full BB8 come to life right in front of you, while saving your wallet the brunt of the pain. Enthusiasts who build their own full scale BB8s frequently see their drive system (controllers, motors, sensors, batteries, etc) come to around $1000. That's not even counting the body! The fact is that since a 25% increase in height would result in a probable 200% increase in weight, they're saving you a boatload of money by making it smaller. It's true that mass production in China would certainly make it cheaper, but I don't think you'd see a mass production, full scale BB8 come to less than $750 MSRP. Although the scale isn't that much smaller, it is definitely saving you a boatload of money, and its not that much of a compromise anyway.-Mechanical functionI was impressed with the design overall. Perhaps the magnets could have been a tad bit stronger to keep the head on, but the drive system seems pretty robust, and I found that having a smaller lateral weight on a track instead of trying to pendulum a single massive weight simultaneously on two axes was an elegant solution. The head stays on about as well as you'd expect, and there's certainly tangible power behind its movements.-Cosmetics:I found the looks of the BB8 to be impressive. I can't remember the last time I saw a Star Wars toy weathered and panel-lined, so this was a surprise, but a welcome one to be sure. My only real complaint would be that it still has that fake shiny plastic sheen to the finish. I took it upon myself to do an additional panel wash with some waterbase acrylics, and gave the whole thing a spray with some Lowe's brand flat clear coat (after masking off all of the mic holes, LEDs, lenses, etc.), and I am currently very happy with how it looks.-ControlThe robot has 3 control modes, R/C, Voice, and Follow Me. I'll talk about "Follow Me" later. The R/C mode works pretty well, but not much more, and the Voice command works a lot better than I expected. I wish you could have some control over the "random animation" that the center button does, but that's just peanuts. The robot itself is to some degree aware of its environment, and will typically correct itself so it is facing head up, which i found to be nice. I will say that the voice command "come here" frequently works better than the follow me command.-The elephant in the room, the "follow me" command:Let’s face it. It really doesn’t work. But why? To understand this, we have to understand how it works. From what I can tell, The Robot has two IR intensity sensors at the front of the head. The remote has a series of IR LEDs placed around it. My guess is that much like a Nintendo Wii, the Two sensors are designed to triangulate the source of the brightest IR source apparent, and steer the robot to follow it. However, this system is easily broken. The sensors frequently lock on to reflections and light sources, and thus the robot will either run itself into walls, lose tracking altogether, or just stop and look at your brightest lamp. The fact is that IR light is omnipresent and replicated easily. If you’ve ever turned your TV on by pointing the remote at the wall behind you, you’ll know what I mean. So what went wrong? My guess is that whoever built and tested this system did so in a very controlled environment devoid of light obstacles. But when you take a step back and understand what they tried to accomplish, you realize that this is the most reasonable way to try and do this. The next best option would have been to use a camera, ToF sensor, and QR barcode, but that could have easily run the pricetag up another $100 dollars. Even then, robot following and tracking is still an issue that we’re learning the basics about. Just think about how much money is being put into developing self driving cars, and we still have almost nothing to show for it. The fact is, that for a “consumer toy” pricetag, there is simply no way to implement reliable tracking and following at our current level of technology. I’m currently working on improving the tracking, and suspect that it will work better in open environments like atriums and outdoors. I’ll report back if I find anything.In short, while this is far from a perfect BB8, I hope understanding the challenges of making BB8 will help some buyers understand why some of the engineering tradeoffs were made, and how those tradeoffs saved you, the customer, money. I also hope that this review helps to manage expectations, particularly in reference to the "follow me" command.

This thing is a hoot. I got it all powered up and ready to rock. The voice commands worked perfectly and follow me was fantastic. RC mode is FAST, so you need some solid open space to use it because it’s also a big heavy toy. The head does pop off fairly easy if you slam into something using RC mode, but with more space that wouldn’t be a major problem. We ended up returning it but oh how I wish I had a bigger basement to enjoy this thing.