Zibits Are Cute Crowd-Pleasers
Writing by Greg Intermaggio on Monday, 1 of March , 2010 at 2:52 am
Zibits, the cute new line of robot toys from Senario, promise to “take the world by storm,” presuming that you think of the assemblage of robots as droplets of rain. In any case, these bots certainly have some merit. Senario says they’ll be able to move forward, and rotate 360 degrees (presumably, the bots can’t back up), and are controlled via IR remote.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about these bots is their price tag- they’ll be retailing for $9.99 a pop, which to me is quite impressive. With the advent of infrared control in consumer robots, prices have been slowly, surely going down. Instead of having to use expensive radio receivers and transmitters, companies like Senario are using cheaper IR control systems, which are almost as effective in robots like these… until you take them out into bright sunlight, and the IR receiver gets confused.
Does the lower price justify the quality?
[ Senario ] VIA [ Robot Snob ]
Comments (5)
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Comment by Megan
Made Monday, 1 of March , 2010 at 11:44 am
Hi, David -
Just wanted to let you know that these little guys are called Zibits, not Zidbits.
Take care,
Megan
Comment by Intermaggio
Made Monday, 1 of March , 2010 at 2:48 pm
Thank you for the correction- Megan :) It looks like Evan managed to fix it before I could.
Comment by DENOMOLUS
Made Monday, 1 of March , 2010 at 2:48 pm
I still think a clank of robots is a better collective noun. Assemblage doesn’t flow well.
Comment by Evan Ackerman
Made Monday, 1 of March , 2010 at 4:25 pm
I still get crap about that from the guy who picked “clank” as the winner, too :p
Comment by Dan
Made Wednesday, 3 of March , 2010 at 10:06 pm
Pretty cool, especially when you consider pairing it up with the RedEye Mini for the iphone, this could lead to some interesting app fun.
http://thinkflood.com/products/redeye-mini/what-is-redeye-mini/
Next pair it up with the bump api and pass control from one friend to another or do strange things like, have a crowdsource connected back end where turks manipulate flash, that comes through your pc and controls the bots… or whatever.. lots of odd ball ideas in here, must play.
