Roboni - I Programmable Gaming Robot

Roboni-i Review.Bought 3 of these when Woot guested as Gold Box of the day, mainly because of the positive reviews, both Amazon and various 'gamer' sites. Then, when they sold out three different times that day, I thought to myself, these things must really be something.Wrong.Really, really overrated. Neither me nor my three grandchildren are impressed ... it took all of ten minutes for all of us to lose interest.1. 12 rechargeable batteries (each) are necessary and expensive. I bought the best and we still don't get 20 minutes a session. Do you know how long it takes to recharge 12 AA's?2. Steering is imprecise out of the box and very difficult to master, I'm guessing weeks, not days.3. Bots are fairly well constructed but fragile ... any kind of accident, even a short drop, and they're gonna break. Of particular concern is the wheel frames which I'm guessing can be easily snapped when the oversize wheel is accidentally cantilevered with the wheel itself the next to go. And, because they keep moving and jerking around even when you put the controller down, they're really easy to drop.4. "Programmable" is a joke ... all you can do is drop and drag from a list of meaningless 'motions'. Chuck the Truck is more fun to "program" than this.5. Control is constantly being interrupted by the bot's 'personality' function if you can call a few beeps and an annoying shudder a personality.6. Finally, every review spoke of how much fun it would be to have two or three of these at the same time. WRONG! All they do is get tangled up with the others' wheels and give the imprecision of control, you have to physically separate them, which means picking them up, while they're jerking around, see above as being prone to dropping and breaking.I expect the kids to give them another try or two but as of right now, I'm going to rank these as the worst Christmas presents I've ever purchased and trust me, that's saying something.

Did not have luck with this item, not the the item was bad, but the distributor was not responsible - disappointed to find out the sender would not take returns - my fault for not reviewing the fine print. If a company is willing to sell, they should be willing to return if item is credible

This was a good buy for a couple of Robonis at $60 per unit, obviously a fire sale.The makers of these gadgets appear to be out of business which means that it's not possible to get any updates or to participate in any online activities. This is the bad news. The not so bad news is that the robots are quite excellent and, if you get yourself a pair, you can make a couple of pre-teen to early-teen kids happy, intellectually stimulated and occupied.I am not going to be over-long reviewing a discontinued product given that the Amazon page has a lot of details so I am only going to highlight what I believe it's worth knowing before making a buying decision.- As far a 'toy' robotic hardware, these ones are tops. Their technology is surprisingly advanced. They come with lots of sensors, they move very well, are easy to control and can talk to each other.- It is possible to develop your own games and they can be fun if you have A PAIR of these to play with.- If you consider buying one of these, consider buying ONE DOZEN rechargeable AA batteries and a charger for EACH of the robots you buy or you will be spending a lot of money on batteries (not included).- Like I said already, the company appears to be gone. THERE IS NO SUPPORT whatsoever beyond maybe returning a defective unit. I doubt that anyone is going to honor any warranties.- As robots go today, these can be A LOT of fun and, when the out-of-the-box fun wears off you can work on making your own. My kids, for example, are programming them to battle each other, without much human control.With the above in mind, and knowing what I know now, I would still buy a pair if the price somewhere around $60-70. The 3 star (it's Okay) mean that I'm not unhappy with the purchase but that I'd be a lot happier if this was a supported product.