Nowadays a smart phone is much more than just a communication device; you can control your television, log into your home PC, or even have an intelligent conversation with your cell phone. Having technology this advanced right at our fingertips has opened up an entirely new scene of accessories that complement the intelligence of our smart phones. One of the newest and coolest of these inventions is Orbotix’s Sphero. At a glance it looks like an typical white ball with a logo on the side, but there is so much more hidden under the hood of this device.
This little ball gets powered up and flies around the room, lighting up with almost human-like emotions through thousands of little LED’s built into the outer casing. This ball can engage in different games or just go for a free roam… here’s the catch, it’s controlled right through your smart phone. With the associated iPhone app you are able to control each and every action of the Sphero right down to the inch. Just shake the ball twice to turn it on and you will be met with the slight pulse of the inner motor and LED’s starting to glow a few different colors. It’s oddly similar to holding a small child or dog, as there is a constantly moving inside component that keeps the Sphero oriented.
The real innovation of the Sphero is shown when you connect it wirelessly to your smart phone. It connects via Bluetooth to the latest of iPhone and Android devices. It pairs with the phone just like any type of accessory like a car hands-free or wireless headphones. Once you have the Sphero set up and ready to go there are a wide variety of different apps you can use to play around with it. One of the cool ones is called SpheroCam, which enables a mixture between the original movement controls and then adds in a video and photo taking functionality that makes it super easy to take photos of your Sphero in action. This makes for funny Youtube videos of a dog or cat chasing around this colorful ball of fun. Another great app that comes with the Sphero is called SpheroGolf, and as you can guess it’s a virtual golf game that uses Sphero for the ball. It’s a really cool concept and brings an entirely new edge to the device, but falls short due to the intensive and hard to understand controls. Basically it would be awesome to play around in your house or outside if the ball was accurate enough to ensure that you wouldn’t ever lose sight of it, but unfortunately the Sphero just isn’t at that stage yet. On the other hand this problem will most likely get solved very soon because Orbotix is releases a SDK for developers and people will be able to start making their own apps that are entirely compatible with the Sphero in no time. For $129 the Sphero is rather pricy as a tech toy that doesn’t bring much new to the table; but the idea of new user-created apps could bring this toy in an entirely new direction which seems very promising and could be just what this device needs to get to the next level of entertainment.
