Orbotix Sphero Motion Controlled Ball Linus Tech Tips CES 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,147 words · ~5 min read
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This is one of those products where it's hard to say if this qualifies for more
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the tech channel or the cat channel. This is the Sphero from Orotics. And
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basically what it is is if you check out the green one that's out there in the
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the track that they've set up. That's the one that I'm controlling with this
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iPod touch. And I'm just going to bring it around back to us. Hello everybody at
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the Sparro booth. We're about to start another Sparro race. Um, this is John
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from Sparro and I'd like him to explain just a little bit what the heck is going
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on with this thing. How does how do I set this up and get this working?
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So Sphere is a smartphone control robotic wall. It works on Android and iOS.
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And how work it is you you shake it to wake it up and it's going to blink three
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colors. You connect to it over Bluetooth and then you can drive it around. We have over 20 different apps and games
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that you can use either control sphero or you can actually use sphero as a
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controller and tilt it in your hand to turn around.
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In addition, we have some new augmented reality games that have just come out like Sharky the Beaver and uh the
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Rolling Dead which we just announced. Um do you want to drive in the race? Uh no,
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no, I'm okay. Let's uh let's sort of let's sort of focus on how you actually
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manage to race multiples of these things at a time. How the heck do you know
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which one you're connecting to? Um, so when you connect to it, you can
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actually bring up the uh Bluetooth screen here. And
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uh there we go. So you can see there's a bunch of different spheros like blue,
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yellow, blue, green, red, red, purple, orange, red, white, purple, white. Uh so
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when you wake up your sphere, it's going to flash the threecolor code and you know which one to connect to. So if you
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and your brother both get a sphere on Christmas morning, you'll know which one
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you need to connect to. Now, how durable is this thing? Is it appropriate as a
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cat toy? I mean, can I throw it for my dog even? Oh, yes. My dog chews on it
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all the time. In fact, I can actually take it uh stand on it on the floor and
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I'm putting all my weight on that one foot and I'm not crushing it. And uh you
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can actually uh just throw it out there and if you go back to the home screen
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there and relaunch the app, you'll be able to drive it around just fine up
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there. Wow. Very cool stuff. Okay, so how much
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does one of these cost? Uh retails for $129. It's available at the Apple store
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and Target. Now, do I have to control it with the Joyad or do I have other
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options? So, if you press this button down here, you can actually switch it into tilt mode. So, now you hold it
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flat, it's going to stay still, but as you tilt it, it's going to drive in
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whichever direction you tilt it. So, unlike an RC car, there isn't an obvious
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front of the Sphero. So, how does it know that when I tilt it this way, it
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needs to move away from me? Uh, so when you first start playing with it, you
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actually have to aim it. So, you press this button right here. I think ours is
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behind the pillar. All right. So, we got all our Spheros on the left. Little blue
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light comes on. We point that blue light towards us and then Sparro knows where
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we're standing in relation. Put this little blue light this way cuz we are
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going clockwise. All right. Thanks, guys. So, this was the Spar from Ortics.
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Don't miss any of our CES 2013 coverage. And as always, don't forget to subscribe
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to Linus Tech Tips. You have a
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We actually didn't make it away from the robotics booth just yet. that they have
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an augmented reality game with their
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little ball device here that doesn't look like a ball anymore at all. In
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fact, it looks well, if you look down at the ground, it looks like a ball. But if
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you look at the screen that's taking a feed from the iPad being held by Fabitio
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here, it is a beaver that is running around on the ground. So you guys are
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replacing with the camera on the iPad, the ball with this beaver model. Yeah,
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that's correct. Yep. Yeah. So, we're we're tracking the ball in every frame
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and using it to figure out where the ball is, where the camera is, and that
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allows us to draw any kind of 3D content we want. In this app, we just draw over
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the ball, but uh we have other apps where we draw other objects in. Zombies
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come up out of the ground, coins to collect, all sorts of things. Now, you
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showed us here. Do you want to just turn yourself so that uh Oh, yeah. I guess
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here. Just bring the There you go. There you go. So, now you can see what he
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looks like. He actually gets bigger as the ball gets closer. Can you take him a
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little bit further away from us so that we can see how he Yeah, there we go. So
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we can see how he gets smaller as he gets further away. So you have a game where you can chuck cupcakes to him and
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you can fling them quite a distance in order to try to feed Mr. Sharky over
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there. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. All right. So guys, very very
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cool demo. It goes beyond just sort of, you know, racing it around on a track. I
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mean, this is more of a tech demo at this point, but you guys have plans to
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continue to develop this in the future. Yeah, definitely. Over the next year, we're going to build this out. I mean,
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the gameplay opportunities are really huge. You know, you can multiplayer,
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replace it with, you know, any kind of avatar you want. Uh, drop static objects
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in your living room and go visit them later. It's sort of crazy. Lots of lots
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of lots of opportunity for innovation. Very cool stuff. Guys, don't miss any of
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our CES 2013 coverage. Make sure you're subscribed to Linus Tech Tips.