Ollie sphero

By this time last year, I had the chance to try the Sphero 2.0 robotic ball and it was such an interesting toy. That’s the reason I was so excited when Sphero sent me its new-generation toy for reviewing.It is called Orbotix Ollie and the unit I received is even the special edition, Darkside Ollie. Let’s check it out.Unboxing VideoDesign & FeaturesUnlike the previous versions, the Ollie has a tubular design with 2 wheels on the sides. The Darkside edition comes in a black color and it looks exactly the same as the normal edition. However, you can see the special edition comes with some more accessories. Apart from the 2 Nubby Tires and 2 Prime Hubs, it is also equipped with 2 Turbo Tires for boosted performance and 2 Flux Hubs to make the Ollie even cooler.As compared to the Sphero 2.0, the Ollie doesn’t look as cute and it is actually closer to a remote control car. Even the app is also quite boring and you might be disappointed if you have already tried the interesting app for Sphero robotic ball. Basically, you only have one screen with a trick pad on the left and joystick on the right. There is no extra app or game, so you can get bored very soon if you are not a RC car enthusiast.Control screen of the Ollie appHowever, the Ollie is great for what it is offering. This is a high-performance toy and it can reach the speed of over 14mph. Besides, you can do some nice tricks like spinning, drifting, and flipping. It sounds easy but it is actually quite difficult to master the tricks, especially with the virtual controls. You can check out some tricks in the video below.Setting up the Ollie is quite easy and I love that waking it up now requires just a touch. Ollie uses Bluetooth 4.0 LE connection, so it is on all the time. To wake it up, you just need to touch it gently with your smartphone and the Ollie will be on immediately.The Orbotix Ollie is available on Amazon for less than $99 and the Darkside edition costs $50 more. This is a nice toy but honestly I still prefer the Sphero robotic ball because it is more interesting and I can spend a lot more time playing with its app. However, if you need a high-speed one, the Ollie

Adam Wilson almost didn't go to LA. Before he was responsible for building the BB-8 toy to accompany Star Wars: The Force Awakens, before his life and company changed forever, Wilson and his team almost declined a chance to be part of a TechStars startup incubator in the fall of 2014. They'd done TechStars before, four years earlier in Boulder, Colorado—that's really where Wilson and co-founder Ian Bernstein launched their company, then called Orbotix—and didn't think they needed to do it again. Doing TechStars meant surrendering more equity in the company (now called Sphero), and spending months away from an already successful business. "We were on the fence," Wilson says, "all the way up until the day of." But because they couldn't convince themselves to say no, they finally said yes.It was the incubator's partnership with Disney that sold them. They'd been making their most popular product, a sweet little robot ball also named Sphero, for about four years. It had this cute little ghost face (almost like Shy Guy from the Mario universe), which people liked, but they knew it needed more personality. "We almost wanted to get you to call your Sphero a name," Wilson says, "and feel bad if you lose it. We were like, man, we're so good at making technology, but we're not the best story writers in the world."The goal was to get in a room with someone who could help shape, and tell, the ball-bot's story. "Imagine, just imagine," they told each other, "if we could have somebody who maybe wrote the story for Wall-E or something, come and look at our story ... and give us hints. 'Oh, what would make it incredible is this.'"That's exactly what Sphero got during the 90-day program. "Five times over," Wilson says. They also got a deal to build the toy of the year, this decade's must-have Star Wars collectible. Most of all, they got a window into the story-first thinking that makes Disney so powerful—and a chance to learn how to apply it to their own adorable robots. BB-8 is the biggest thing to ever happen to Sphero, but it's only the beginning.The High CouncilFast-forward to a few weeks after Sphero said yes to TechStars. Everyone's in the throes of the incubator, sitting in endless meetings, constantly rehearsing and rewriting the pitch. Wilson and Co. are about to meet with Disney CEO Bob Iger. Each TechStars team got 15 minutes with Iger, and the Sphero crew didn't expect much. They'd loved all their meetings, learned a lot about how Disney works and thinks, and expected the same here.They show Iger two products: the eponymous Sphero, and Ollie, the rubberized, cylindrical all-terrain take on the same idea. As soon as they finish, Iger pulls out his phone and opens his photos app. As it happens, he'd been on the ultra-secret set of the new Star Wars movie a few days before, and Sphero had reminded him of something.He swipes past pictures of director JJ Abrams (there

May have been a selfie in there), and points to a shot of a little robot ball in the desert. "He's like, 'Look at this!'" Wilson says. "'How awesome would it be if you made your product into a toy of this?'"Now, when the CEO of Disney asks you if you'll make a Star Wars toy, you say yes. The Sphero team left the room and went immediately to work. Twenty minutes later, they had a design for a crude BB-8—a Sphero with a head. That night, after the place cleared out and they could work without spilling their big secret, they made one with a 3-D printer. And damned if it didn't work. They shot a quick and dirty video and sent it to Iger.Iger's people were nervous. "This is Bob Iger!" Wilson recalls them saying. "The only thing he's used to seeing are these huge productions by Marvel. And you want to show this to him?" Yes, Wilson said. Show it to him. Iger saw it and went nuts. A few meetings and emails later, Disney made Sphero an official Lucasfilm licensee and steward of the BB-8 toy. Then it dropped the hammer: they had 10 months to get BB-8 onto store shelves. Force Friday was September 4, 2015. It had to be ready, or there would be a great disturbance in the Force.Still, it wasn't going to be hard. Well, not too hard. Oh sure, they had to figure out the design, improve the Bluetooth, integrate the magnetic head, and make sure it rolled so smoothly even Lucasfilm would love it. But they'd been working on this same thing for four years. At one point, they'd even given Sphero hair, mostly as a joke. "[Bernstein] made a little magnet with some hair on the Sphero," Wilson says, "that is the exact magnet setup that we have now." Looking back, he feels a bit dumb that no one ever thought to give Sphero a head.This Is the Droid You're Looking ForSphero didn't really need Star Wars. Yes, of course, it changed everything—the scale of Sphero's business transformed the moment it signed the Disney deal. Wilson told Bloomberg that a month of BB-8 sales nearly matched all of the company's sales from 2014, and the company sold more than 2,000 of the adorable droids—at $150 a pop–every hour on Force Friday. The company can't make them fast enough. "The retailers are pissed at us," Wilson says.Still, he'd like you to know the company was doing just fine before BB-8, thank you very much. People like Sphero and Ollie, and everyone at Sphero had been thinking about the next product, which Wilson declines to describe beyond saying "it's a home robot...it's a smarter robot. It's the next version of what we'd do anyway." They'd even closed another round of investing. Saying "We're building BB-8" goes over well with investors. "They were like, 'holy crap!'" Wilson says. "You get to close the round and then build that. And that will obviously