Popular Science’s Best of What’s New in 2011, and a fan favorite at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, the Sphero rolls on down the avenue of robotic innovation. And that’s without a robot!
Sphero is a ball, about the size of a Magic 8-ball, that moves around through a (one time only) Bluetooth connection with a smartphone or tablet that serves as its remote control. The “Sphero” App is the brain of the device and can program it to adhere to the user’s voice commands that will get it to move, or even play dead.
There are many ways to drive the Sphero, and the “Sphero Golf” application allows an iPhone to act as a putter and club the ball, without actually touching it, toward any office garbage can or hole. There is also a Space Invaders-like game where the player holds and turns the Sphero ball to fight off the spaceships on the iPad screen’s starry backdrop.
The ball itself looks like an enormous eye with its white exterior (but the color is changeable in the “Sphero” App) and a pupil-like circle that serves as a camera for pictures and video through the use of the “SpheroCam” App, which is one of six Apps that are available for it for free.
Sphero might be a cat’s dream, but it also seems like a pricey way to have fun with friends, or spy on neighbors. Sphero is one hundred and twenty-nine bucks and specifically runs on just iOS Apple devices or Androids for the time being.
