Star Wars BB-8 toy review (App-Enabled Droid by Sphero)

With the new film coming to cinemas later this year, the first Star Wars trailer was bound to be a big thing and everything shown therefore received an excess of exposure and analysis. Making its debut was BB-8, a droid that may follow in the footsteps of legends like R2-D2 and C-3PO. It was no surprise then when a toy version appeared in the first wave of merchandise; and we were pleased to see Sphero had been drafted in to create it – giving us the Star Wars BB-8 App Enabled Droid.

Sphero has created ball-shaped, app-controlled robots before of course, in the form of the Sphero itself. In fact BB-8 feels like a modified Sphero, with the addition of the head section that stays (largely) on top of the droid as it rolls around, if nothing else it's an impressive bit of engineering.

Sphero’s BB-8 certainly looks the part, its tough polycarbonate shell has all the right markings and is a good colour match. Of course it’s much smaller than the 'actual' droid, which is around ten times the height of Sphero’s 73mm version. It comes with a very cool-looking wireless charging dock, which runs via USB and fully charged can apparently last for 60 minutes of use, not that we ever played with it for that long.

BB-8 is controlled by a smartphone app, available for Android and iOS. Using this you can drive BB-8 around at speeds suitable for indoor play. There’s also a handful of buttons which make it do special moves, like little dances, or just wobbling on the spot and looking confused. It’s occasionally adorable, but not for very long.

The original Sphero had, and still has, a really good reason to exist. The idea was that developers could write their own apps for the robot via a simple API. It’ was also a great way to get kids into programming, via its SPRK program, as they can see their efforts played out in the real world rather than simply on a screen.

Without that angle, the BB-8 has a rather short lifespan. You drive it about a bit, build a little maze and drive it through it, get it stuck beneath the sofa and knock its head off a few times bouncing down steps, and then me and my kids were kind of stuck. It's cool and cute but it’s not fast enough to give you a thrill, it has no sensors in it, nor can it interact with anything, except by bumping into it.

And you’ll do quite a bit of bumping into things. Despite having used previous Spheros it’s still rather confusing about just which way the droid is about to head off, as it has no obvious front. You'll be driving it around fine but then it'll go past you, or you'll follow it around a corner and suddenly everything is off by 90 or 180 degrees. You can either try and adjust or stop and recalibrate where 'forward' is by spinning the droid around. If you're stood in one place driving it around a room it's fine, but if you want to chase it around the house it's a pain.

The only other key feature are the augmented reality messages, where using your phone you can record a short video message and then (again looking at BB-8 through your phone) watch it ‘project’ the message in a Star Wars style upon a nearby wall. It’s fun, but only once.

So I’ve given BB-8 three stars, it’s not a bad score, but it reflects this is an expensive device that will only please diehard fans and collectors. It simply doesn’t have enough longevity or play value (that I can find) to justify its price unless you factor in a very strong Star Wars bias.

This review sample was kindly provided by Firebox, which sells some much better stuff than this.