I'm just going to return this P.O.S. Being a consumer targeted product, this thing should have been simple to set up, simple to operate and ready to go out of the box, with no problems, and no computer programming degree required. One time it connects to the network, the next moment it wont. I wont even mention how incredibly difficult it would be for the normal person, me included, to get this connected to the internet to use from a remote location. (guess I just did)

Not to mention problems with batteries, chargers, docking problems, etc etc etc. I wanted one of these for a long time, and am glad I didn't spend the $300 on it over a year ago.

agingdragqueen wrote:We'll be checking on this, and I'll update as soon as we figure out what's going on. As far as we're aware, they have agreed to replace batteries, I'm just not sure if they're overwhelmed or ignoring people.

I didn't know about the 1-800 number until today but I did email them on Saturday with no response. My battery was totally dead on arrival.

agingdragqueen wrote:We have worked with WowWee and have been able to get them to agree to replacing any underpowered batteries that our customers may have received. If you suspect that your battery is defective, please call them at 800-310-3033 and let us know if you have any issues when speaking with them.

I can never get through or get anyone to call me back! This is frustrating as I went through this when I ordered the Nokia n77o with the bad screen issue. Why does Woot sell junk products like this?

Got mine today. Must have been one of the luckier ones, because there was a little juice. Logged on, applied firmware update 5.03 through web portal (probably wasn't a good idea - was unaware of these issues), and it worked fine. Setup for WPA without a hitch, and was driving fine... Then it started making a funny noise (motor I think), and died. Though the blue surrounding lights light up, and blink/pulse on the charger; no top light. Super dim red light blinking several times a second. Can't be found on the network. Can't find the default AD HOC. No way I've found to hard reboot - without the top light indicating it's preparing to do so. Hopefully it's not bricked...

I got mine today. Battery wouldn't charge for more than 20 minutes so I had to take it off and put it back. After doing that a few times I got about 20 minutes of play time before it started to die. Hooking it up to my home network was very easy, and I also got it working on my android phone via the program on the store. Video quality is fine and it works great. Controlling it is a little tricky but it's not hard. For those having battery issues just charge it until the lights stop pulsating, take it off and put it back on until it charges again. Keep doing this and you will get more juice out of it. It ran great on my laminate kitchen floor but carpet was a little sluggish. Turning up the speed might help it a little. My only issue is it wont save the home location.

Fyi I am not great with computers or networking stuff and I found this to be pretty easy.

Add me to the list of people getting less than a minute of run time. Does anyone know what the capacity and voltages of the battery should be? I have a hobby charger for RC batteries but I don't want to just plug it in without knowing how much juice to put in.

Me too.. My batt won't charge. It seems like its charging but just wont hold charge. I checked the psu and it's putting out 8v. So i guess the battery is hosed. So do we ship it back to woot?

Some people are saying its the battery others say its the charger. Do we know for sure which one is the problem? It doesn't sound like it. Is the charger supposed to have less voltage than what it says on the dock?

agingdragqueen wrote:We'll be checking on this, and I'll update as soon as we figure out what's going on. As far as we're aware, they have agreed to replace batteries, I'm just not sure if they're overwhelmed or ignoring people.

I received my Rovio today and seem to be having the same problem as many others. I followed all instructions explicitly, but my Rovio only holds a charge for 1- 2 minutes before dieing. Everything else works very well with my Rovio except the battery life. Attempting to work through the fixes other users have posted.

So maybe its the charger after all?

http://www.robocommunity.com/forum/thread/14330/Rovio-battery/?page=7#45570

What I don't get is why six bright led lights are on while it's charging. Does everyone experience this? It seems no wonder that my Rovio is barely charging -- all the voltage is going to the lights.

Those of you who are finally getting 15-20 minutes of charge after various rain dances or whatever you're doing; don't settle. If you look at other forums (like the robocommunity.com one on Rovio battery linked above), your Rovio should be lasting 30+ mins at least (many report an hour of use).

From what I understand, for a few lucky people who got working batteries, chargers, cameras, navigation systems -- this is a sweet robot. Rough deal for the rest of us though. I'm just hoping someone will post a legit fix to the battery issue (by far the most common one), even if it means making a Radio Shack run.

P.S. (edit) ...if only we had known ahead of time, we could have had hack-a-day release a hack that gets our Rovios to actually work! (I could probably live without the enhanced LEDs)

My battery is terrible too. I tested the voltage across the two prongs on the base and it is getting 8.22V so it's no the charger for me.

I am going to do some testing and try to charge the battery outside of the rovio to determine if the battery cell itself is bad which is 99.9% the problem.

wordsmitten wrote:What I don't get is why six bright led lights are on while it's charging. Does everyone experience this? It seems no wonder that my Rovio is barely charging -- all the voltage is going to the lights.

Those LEDS don't consume a whole lot of power.

Same issue here too. I received my Rovio today, charged it for at least 8 hours, and get about 1-2 minutes of run time before the battery goes dead.

I was able to upgrade to the newest firmware, but that's about all at this point.

matrix2004 wrote:Some people are saying its the battery others say its the charger. Do we know for sure which one is the problem? It doesn't sound like it. Is the charger supposed ot have less voltage than what it says on the dock?

It is the luck of your purchase, for most it's the batteries. My father was into radio control for 30+ years, and tells me NiMH seems ot have a tendency ot go 'bad on the shelf' vs NiCad(which had a memory), overall NiMH are better if you use them but doesn't like a long wait before being used/shipped.

It's also very possible that a slightly higher voltage power adapter is just the ticket for bringing the batteries back ot life, as many seem ot be purchasing 3rd party adapters from radio shack and having success.

A voltmeter might tell you if your Power adapter is blatantly bad if it's voltage is below 8v on output. Although Power adapters can also be bad on load/charging. For this you need ot read the voltage as the unit is charging(You might stand a chance of doing it from the charging poles the rovio sits on, if you can position the probes correctly while the rovio sits on them... If it maintains voltage while under load the Power Adapter is not the problem(is working).

Another thing that is escaping many readers, is the Rovio just 'sitting on the charging station' is NOT always charging. they're is an internal power meter that will pulse the LED's slowly as the unit is being charged, when this pulsing stops the battery is no-longer being charged(and Rovio is being powered from the DC Adapter). This is also apparent when logged into the rovio on the Battery status image(charging or showing battery level).

So, if your having battery trouble, when the pulsing stops pick up the rovio and put it back down or drive it forward and right back again so the internal charge controller gives it another 'boost'. Combined with complete discharges, and recharges this has restored one of the batteries ot over 1 hour(from 5min) of driving time. On the other rovio We purchased, its battery didn't improve more than a few minutes(3 min out of box, 11min max after all the attempts). We have swapped power supplies and base stations on both rovios and 1 remains 'bad', so ot me, it's the battery(less pwr adapter)

Also as 1 other commenter has said, touch a screw driver end(metal) ot the end of the poles(one at a time, don't put metal across the two) that comes up out of the charging station and make sure they are magnetic (ie, they lift up when touched and pulled upward). If they do not, the magnet inside might have come lose(or installed incorrectly) and might cause connectivity issues. We can't see putting a weight on the back of the rovio being of any use(as some have said they are doing).

Tack one more onto the bad battery list. I charged mine for 20+ hrs and I got less than 5 mins of run time. That was with pulling it off and then putting it back on the charger at least 10 times.

telefoto wrote:Same issue here too. I received my Rovio today, charged it for at least 8 hours, and get about 1-2 minutes of run time before the battery goes dead.

I was able to upgrade to the newest firmware, but that's about all at this point.

Today my Rovio did a miraculous thing! It ran for 45 straight minutes! I've been constantly playing with it the last week, driving it around, letting it die completely, then recharging it. Last night I rolled it off it's base about 3 feet, and let it find it's way back when it was discharged. In the morning I found Rovio to be camera up and 2 inches away from fully docking, but dead. Today I remotely logged in and to my surprise it ran for 45 minutes. So hopefully after doing many full discharges, everyone can get the full charge on their batteries.

Also some notes. I did check my AC Adapter and I was getting ~8.4V out from the adapter, and ~8.2V from the posts on the dock. I didn't check it under load. I did have the new firmware from the second charge on and my Rovio lately has been running ~10 minutes until today.

As for people having issues getting connected remotely, I found the AT&T U-verse 2 Wire modem to not work with opening ports unless I used DMZ for the bot. When you use DMZ you can only reach the bot by external IP and no internal. Also when you do DMZ, you MUST reboot your robot as it will obtain your external IP only after a power on/power off reboot. Hope that helps other people.

Is anyone having this issue? When I place it on the dock it seems to blink a few times and start pulsating slowly as expected. Then after about 5 minutes the blue leds start to flash quickly. If I try to control it at all it only moves for a split second and turns off. Any ideas?

crocenelli wrote:Is anyone having this issue? When I place it on the dock it seems to blink a few times and start pulsating slowly as expected. Then after about 5 minutes the blue leds start to flash quickly. If I try to control it at all it only moves for a split second and turns off. Any ideas?

Same issue as me. This means it starts to charge but then stops when the blue leds blink rapidly. So when you move it off the base and it dies that's because the battery isn't holding charge.

Can someone from woot chime in and point everyone in the right direction? It's clear that this isn't an isolated incident.

agingdragqueen wrote:We have worked with WowWee and have been able to get them to agree to replacing any underpowered batteries that our customers may have received. If you suspect that your battery is defective, please call them at 800-310-3033 and let us know if you have any issues when speaking with them.

I emailed WowWee about the battery issue and they told me I have a defective charger. They asked for me to verify my order with my receipt and are supposedly replacing the charger not the battery. Anyone else get this result?

dhnobles wrote:I emailed WowWee about the battery issue and they told me I have a defective charger. They asked for me to verify my order with my receipt and are supposedly replacing the charger not the battery. Anyone else get this result?

I got this response. Once you fax your receipt they will tell you that the point of sale is responsible for replacements within the first 30 days. Then you'll be in the boat most of us are in, woot telling you to go back to them and Wowwee to tell you to go to woot.

Also note, my Rovio is now dying again after 10 minutes .

It's not the battery it is the 8 volt power supply they are shipping with it. I bought one and a friend bought one. Neither would charge for more than a few minutes.

After searching the web we found lot's of reports complaining about the 8 volt adapter not being enough voltage. We even found a picture of the board inside of rovio where the input is labeled 9 Volts!

He hooked his base station up to his 9 volt bench power supply and everything worked perfectly!

What's sad is Woowee has known about this issue for over two years!

I hope woot can get them to replace the chargers with 9 volt units without requiring a everyone ship their units back to woot!

Everything I have read about this on other forums points to the 8V power supply being the culprit, not the battery. I am the guy pwmguy is referring to and like he said I too fixed mine by replacing the 8V power supply with a 9V supply. My 8V supply was putting out 8.2V even with the Rovio on the dock but it still wouldn't charge so I don't think the power supply is defective it just isn't enough voltage to let the charge circuitry in the Rovio do its job.

Hopefully Wowwee can fix the issue for you but if you want to fix it sooner just go get a 9V REGULATED adapter. My supply was showing 2.2 A draw at the beginning of a charge cycle so 2.5 A (aka 2500 mA) is the minimum current rating I would suggest. You can pick these up for about $15 shipped on eBay or even cheaper if you are willing to wait on one to arrive from China. I got a 9V 4500 mA one for $15 shipped. It's overkill but it will do.

You will almost certainly have to cut the end off your 8V supply and solder it onto the adapter you buy since it's not a common 9V connector. I have read you can buy a 9V 2.5 A power adapter from Radio Shack with the proper "T" fitting that fits into the charging dock if you don't have soldering tools.

This is what i just received from the wowwee support email:

It sounds like you have a bad ac adapter. Please provide us with a copy of the receipt to validate the warranty and we can have a new adapter shipped to you. Please fax the receipt to 514 344 1252 and include a note containing your full name, phone number and mailing address.

Sincerely,
WowWee Customer Service

I need a little networking help here.

so i can access it from inside my wireless network from a browser by just putting in the internal ip, 192.168.x.x, I can even access it from my iphone (when not on the network) with the rovio app I payed for and DLed, or safari, but I cant access it from an outside computer, even with safari or IE6... any ideas on what step I may have missed?? This is the error I get when trying to access my rovio with a PC out of my network:

Network Error (tcp_error)


A communication error occurred: "Connection refused"
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

llnozej wrote:I need a little networking help here.

so i can access it from inside my wireless network from a browser by just putting in the internal ip, 192.168.x.x, I can even access it from my iphone (when not on the network) with the rovio app I payed for and DLed, or safari, but I cant access it from an outside computer, even with safari or IE6... any ideas on what step I may have missed?? This is the error I get when trying to access my rovio with a PC out of my network:

Network Error (tcp_error)


A communication error occurred: "Connection refused"
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

follow this:

http://www.robocommunity.com/article/14500/How-To-Set-Up-External-Access-Over-The-Internet-For-Your-WowWee-Rovio/

DAY 1

I had issues with the battery at first - eventually had to do the firmware update with the rovio on the charger base. Actually had to do the firmware 3 times before it would properly turn on.

One thing of note - carefully read and follow the instructions for when to connect the USB and turn power on and off.

Once the new firmware was installed it charged fine.

DAY 2

After a complete charge (overnight) I did the initial setup via USB and was able to drive it around on the internal wireless for a good 40-60 minutes. Image quality was excellent and it would dock by itself every time.

Note on docking/home - as mentioned before here, tape the base to the floor. Aim the red lights at the ceiling as shown in the manual. With the rovio on the base, connect and click the "set home" button. The rovio should leave the base, lift the cam arm, dance around a bit and then redock.

DAY 3

Played around with setting up external access. Most of the info that is here and at robocommunity.com is not well structured and incomplete. It took me a good 3 hours of changing things in order to get it working - part of the issue was doing it from work where some of the ports are blocked, but I was able to use my Verizon wireless to sort it out.

It works pretty good, just ever so slightly laggy. Plus you need to cut back the image quality to 320x240, 15 fps, medium if you want to be able to actually move and navigate.

I was even able to access the rovio via my blackberry Storm2 using IE mode on the browser.

I am going to build a proper how-to for getting the internet access working this evening and will post it back here.

toc2rta wrote:Same issue as me. This means it starts to charge but then stops when the blue leds blink rapidly. So when you move it off the base and it dies that's because the battery isn't holding charge.

Can someone from woot chime in and point everyone in the right direction? It's clear that this isn't an isolated incident.

If your having the same problem as me check that the wires are still connected to the deans connector. I took out my battery and the wires had broken off the connector. If you take the rovio off of the base when it is on and it doesn't stay on, than this may have happened to you. I fixed it and now it is charging normally. good luck

tvharmony wrote:This is what i just received from the wowwee support email:

This is the same reply I received.

I'm not sure what I can fax them... But from my experimentation, I also believe the power supply is the problem.

This is my hack way of getting the external internet access to work

WLAURENT wrote:This is my hack way of getting the external internet access to work

You only put the DynDNS in the Rovio setup page if you have a switch hooked up your modem and your provider lets you have multiple IP's.

If you have a router (which most people do), you only input the DynDNS into the router itself. If you have a router and put the DynDNS info into the Rovio, your Rovio is going to return back the internal IP it's being assigned by the router to Rovio (ex 192.xx.xx.xx) instead of the WAN IP being assigned to the router.

Your port forwarding is correct. In addition I set up a trigger for port 80 to open up port 554.

I had the pleasure of configuring my Rovio to port forward through two cascaded routers.

stv6669 wrote:
Did anyone get there rovio two work with WPA2?

Thanks for the tip. You need two update the firmware two have it support WPA2.

We bought some of these as future Christmas gifts but am concerned about the issues being discussed.

From what We have been reading on this forum it sounds like the issue is with the charger and not the batteries.

For those who are getting(trying) ot get support from wowwee, what is wowwee replacing?

We assume wowwee will not just send me new chargers without me testing them first. For those getting replacements are you being asked ot run specific tests or are you just saying, it doesn't charge?


Any information would be much appreciated.

Worst case We guess We will have ot open up and test the Christmas gifts ot see if they have any issue.

Anyone else have AT&T cable/internet with a 2Wire 3800 router? We set mine up and there is no uPNP, but We THOUGHT when We went into the Firewall settings that We had opened ports 80 and 554, but now that We'm at a remote location apparently We can input my IP address into the address bar and We get the interface for Rovio, and We can control it, and We can take pictures and see the result, but there is no video or audio coming through. Any, and We mean ANY help is appreciated! If We don't hear anything useful by Monday, We'll try the solution on http://oh-my-goodness.net/ROVIO/roviosetup.htm

We'm having an issue with getting rovio ot connect ot my wireless router (DI-624). Whenever We try ot set up the network, it never connects and We have ot reset rovio ot it's default settings before it will start broadcasting the ad-hoc network. Has anyone else had this issue?

BTW, ot reset rovio ot the default settings without network access or a windows box, hit the power button ot turn it off and then back on. after the button turns red, turn it off and back on again. Do this two more times and rovio will reset itself ot factory defaults.

iVE had this rovio for three days now and We still have no idea what it does. The power button does not work at all and my pc or magical pet rock cannot recognize it. We have tried everything We technologically know. any ideas? of course We called wowwee and left messages sent emails....... all ot no avail

We was wondering how the rovio went from 300 ot 100 bucks. We'm not wondering anymore.

mark
theilluminator@gmail.com

We just wanted ot post a positive note here. It did take a bit of time and frustration ot set it up (much more than most consumer devices), but it is now working great. We was able ot play with it for an hour or so before the battery got low.

Some observations:

- We let it charge for about 8 hours before We tried ot do the setup. We was unsuccessful on my first setup attempt and had ot head in ot work, so it got ot charge for another 8-10 hours until We was able ot try again. So it got two charge opportunities before We finally got it setup and was able ot run it for a while.

- It seems like if you have the USB cable plugged in before you turn it on, it goes into firmware-upgrade mode. If you are just doing a setup, you can't plug in the USB cable until after it has turned on.

- You need about 3 feet of clear space in front of the docking base or it has trouble with setting the home location.

- If your video is too dark, try setting your video card "Overlay" settings ot high brightness/contrast, under your control panel/display, advanced settings. We definitely intend ot pick up the headlight accessory as soon as We can find one.

- We have a fairly recent U-Verse installation and got it working fine after We set it up for an alternate port and configured the 2WIRE ot let connections come in through the firewall on that port.

- There were a lot of freezes while doing the setup. We persevered and just kept doing it over and over again until it made it all the way through.

- We wasn't able ot find anywhere ot change the RTSP port number, but fortunately that port was still allowed through for my work PC.

- The battery seems ot drop off quickly once it gets below ~25%. This could just be due ot the normal behavior of NiMH batteries, which hold they're voltage very well until they are nearly depleted. Unfortunately, today this left my rovio stranded in my living room before it could make it back home.

Other than that, it seemed ot be working great. There was much cat harassment this morning and afternoon :D

Worked last night. Woke up in the morning ot try ot play with it more ot find that the Rovio is out of battery. But it's NOT the battery. The charging base is hot and We smelled a BURNING smell!!!!! Luckily it didn't burn down the house!