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If the Mini app’s freestyle modes don’t suit your fancy, the games might. “Now that we can do, we wanted to have a little fun with it.” “Smartphone cameras weren’t good enough,” he said. Wilson said a feature like Face Drive, a product of Sphero’s internal accelerator program, wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago. Smile, and the Mini accelerates toward you frown, and the Mini rockets away.

Perhaps the most intuitive way to drive the Mini is in Face Drive mode, which uses the phone’s front camera feed and a facial-recognition algorithm to move the Mini forward and backward. “We designed it to be straightforward,” Wilson said, “even if you’ve never driven before.” A joystick-based Driving mode lets you accelerate, decelerate, and turn the Mini on its axes, and Tilt mode taps your phone’s orientation sensors to move the Mini forward when you tilt upward, backward when you tilt downward, and sideways when you pitch rightward or leftward.

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The other half lies in the little ball’s companion app for iOS and Android devices. “ has basically what you’d find in any smartphone,” Wilson said.īut that’s only half of the Mini’s magic.

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The laundry list of hardware includes a self-stabilizing gyroscope and accelerometer, a Bluetooth radio that pairs to a smartphone, and a battery that lasts for up to an hour of play - and takes an hour to charge. “It’s always been a matter of shrinking down the components. “It’s a manufacturing process that we’ve been developing since ,” Wilson said.

All of the Mini’s components are custom-built by Sphero’s supply chain partners, Adam Wilson, a Sphero co-founder and the company’s chief scientist, told Digital Trends. Inside the case, which splits in two, is a micro USB port - unlike the full-sized Sphero, the Sphero Mini charges via USB, rather than wireless induction. It’s roughly the width and height (0.04 inches) of a golf ball, and it packs multicolored diodes that illuminate the innards of its transparent plastic casing. The Sphero Mini, which is available now starting at $50, is a lighter, slimmer version of the Sphero Sprk+ and eponymous Sphero.

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The first attempt was a little bulkier and pricier than originally envisioned, but now, after years of development, Sphero has come full circle, so to speak, with the Mini. This product was featured in our Holiday Gift Guide! Check it out to find gift inspiration for everyone in your life.īoulder, Colorado-based Sphero rose to prominence with Disney-licensed, remote-controlled merchandise like Ultimate Lightning McQueen, BB-8, BB-9E, and R2D2, But back in 2011, Sphero’s co-founders won over investors with a simple premise: A motorized ball that taps your smartphone for remote control.

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