The holiday season is well underway. You’re probably thinking about what you’re going to buy your loved ones and your friends and today I’m going to bring you a really cool option, especially if you like phone connected toys. You may have heard of a company called Sphero before they created this robotic little ball that you could control with your iPhone or Android device and make it run around on the floor.
One of Sphero’s most recent products is called the Ollie. And that’s the thing in the box right behind me. I’m going to be unboxing it. But not only that, we’re giving you a chance to win one. Actually, we’re giving away a chance to win one of these plus the special edition Darkside model and also giving you a chance to win one of the Sphero balls. Stay tuned to the end of the video to find out how. But first, here is the unboxing.
The packaging itself is transparent on the front and on the back, you have a picture of everything that’s important as well as the specs. But if we open it up, we’ll see how we can get into this packaging. Now the box itself is this bright yellowy-green, neon-colored box. And if we pull it out, you’ll see that the Ollie is actually deconstructed inside the box. This shows you that you can actually take the bits off and swap them out for other pieces.
If we take them out, you get a hub cap, which you have two of these hub caps inside the box. You also get these grippy tires, these Nubby tires. You also get the main Ollie unit itself, which is fairly heavy. And this is what contains all the components or the modes and drivers that make it work. It also has these windows on the outside that let light through so that when you’re charging it or you’re using the device, you’ll see these lights change color which flash around the Ollie and looks really cool. You also have these transparent wheels.
Now these tires that you get, you can buy other colors and different styles of tires as well as different styles of the hub cap. You also get, inside the box, the Quick Start Guide as well as the usual sort of Warranty Information/Legal Information booklet. And you get a bright blue USB cable.
To actually set up the Ollie, you have to build it. You first start off by putting the hub caps—these have three clips around the edges and you have to press them quite firmly to clip them onto the wheels. It is quite difficult but not so much so that you’re going to hurt yourself. Once you’ve placed these on, you can actually slide the tires onto the wheels if you want to. You can leave them off if you’d rather have your Ollie drift around the floor rather than drive around the floor. But I’m going to put these on just for the sake of the video.
Now they are rather tight-fitting and this is good because it means they’re unlikely to come off unless you pull them off. They slide on like so. Once you’ve placed both tires on, you can set up the device to work with your iPhone or Android phone. This uses Bluetooth LED technology so if your phone isn’t’ equipped with this technology, it won’t work.
To set it up, you have to plug it in and charge it until it’s fully charged and then you can download the Ollie app from the App Store. I’m going to use my iPhone for the sake of ease. Once it’s charged up, you can go through the tutorial on the Ollie app. That means you have to sort of touch the Ollie with your phone and then it will connect and then you’re done. You don’t have to go through the Bluetooth settings menu to connect because it does it automatically through the app. And then you go through a basic tutorial on how to control the Ollie. Once you do this, you can sort of get to grips with it and learn what you can do with it and that includes driving it around, changing directions really sensitive.
You do get about 16 minutes of drive time with the Ollie for every full charge, which is bad and it can drive up to 14mph. You can spin, drift, and flip it around using the tricks on the app. And as you get to use it more, you’ll be able to control it better than I’m doing here.
So all in all, the Ollie actually looks really, really fun. I’m looking forward to trying it over the next few weeks to see if I shall be using it more regularly. Obviously this is the first time I actually had to use it so my tricks are pretty rubbish. But it still looks pretty cool. And these are available at the moment for $99.99. They’re down from about $125. And the special edition Darkside model I mentioned earlier, that’s available too for a little bit more.
But like I said, we’re going to give you a chance to win one of these and one of the Darkside models. And to do that, all you need to do is go to the link that’s on the description box. Now this is a worldwide giveaway. You do need to be 18 or over to enter. The giveaway is open from today, December 2nd until December 16th and Sphero is going to announce the winner on the 18th at the latest. So it’s a two-week giveaway. Let us know what you think in the comments.