carrieob wrote:I saw on an Amazon review that "Audio functionality does not work with Macs, see owners manual"

http://www.amazon.com/WowWee-Rovio-Enabled-Robotic-WebCam/product-reviews/B001CQLGD6/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Wow. That gets lemon juice in the eye. :-(

I want one... but the reviews on Amazon aren't so great. Although it sounds like the firmware updates help. This one does seem better than that other wifi robot they've had - the Erector Spykee one. I think I might just hold out for better/cheaper technology, though...

Will this work with an 802.11g wireless network that doesn't accept connections from 802.11b devices, or does it require a slower 802.11b connection?

ckeilah wrote:Wow. That gets lemon juice in the eye. :-(

lol, I just discovered that if you reply to a message with replacement words, you can see what the user originally typed in the quote.

I dunno, maybe check into the Mac thing, though - maybe they did a firmware update since then or something.

It looks like some (several) people have problems with Rovio not docking correctly.

Check these links:

HERE

HERE

VIDEO HERE

SSchwartz wrote:I wonder if I dress this up in a little green dog suit if it'll help me take over the world... unless, of course, it dumps it's fuel to make room for cupcakes or endlessly makes waffles.

Heh, nice Zim reference.

Ooooooooohhhh, what a cool useless novelty. If I had 100 bucks to flush down the toilet, this is where it would go. Dammit.

Dissonance wrote:It looks like some (several) people have problems with Rovio not docking correctly.

Interesting. That seems like the kind of thing that could perhaps be fixed with a little tweaking of the charging contacts.

I'd rather have [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUMGpDTm59w&feature=player_embedded].

In for one - I could never get my web cam working at home, but this MOBILE unit has MANY possibilities; check the kitties out whenever the wife needs her see her 'babies', monitor the house when the alarm goes off (and dials my cell phone). I am sure there are many other possibilities.

equazcion wrote:Ooooooooohhhh, what a cool useless novelty. If I had 100 bucks to flush down the toilet, this is where it would go. Dammit.

Not necessarily just a useless toy. I'm seriously considering one for the summer home that is left unattended for up to eight months at a time. Maybe even a second one for the upstairs rooms. I'm still worried by the docking problems though, because if it refuses to dock and charge, it would sit useless for months (unless I got all NASA on it and figured out a way to remotely give it some juice).

I'm just here to post the Hack A Day permalink so we can all find it in the future...

http://hackaday.com/2010/03/17/woot-how-to-let-there-be-light-for-your-rovio/

Does anybody know the voltage that the base supplies to it while charging? I want to use it in a location where the power is turned off by hooking the base up to a solar-charged battery. I'm hoping it's 12V. That's what powers the wireless router and cable modem there.

I have so many questions on this woot.

a problem i foresee is that it has no defensive capabilities. what if someone comes along and picks your little rovio up off the ground, derailing your mission? what can you do?

i say it should be able to give 'em a little electric shock, which of course means that when the perp drops it (in a position other than squarely on its wheels, of course), it would need to be able to right itself.

Huh. Kewl. Can it be programmed to drive around the house in random patterns vacuuming up dust? 'Cause that would be a really useful thing for a robot to do. If only someone would invent . . .

A very important note from the Rovio's product page (http://www.wowwee.com/en/products/tech/telepresence/rovio/rovio) that many of the Amazon reviewers seem to have missed:

Rovio requires additional TrueTrack Room Beacons (each sold separately) to navigate or self-dock across multiple rooms.

im in for 1.. at 99 you cant beat this price! everywhere else its 250 - 400

btw, woot, you got a typo in the middle of the write-up. the battery is NiMH, not "NiHM".

This video answered a lot of my questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qT7EDLOkE

But it created a new one. How does the "indoor GPS" feature work? What's that all about?

DJ Roomba?

rawfish wrote:A very important note from the Rovio's product page (http://www.wowwee.com/en/products/tech/telepresence/rovio/rovio) that many of the Amazon reviewers seem to have missed:

Rovio requires additional TrueTrack Room Beacons (each sold separately) to navigate or self-dock across multiple rooms.

but without that, could you not still navigate multiple rooms manually (without the abilities of self-docking and waypoints)? (going on the description given on this page)

Is that you Spykee?

Instead of "suggesting" that the link not remove users from your page, why don't you take advantage of the old school target="_blank" and force them to open a new tab :P

Ok, so you can drive it around and see your cat. If you have time to watch this gristle remotely, then whatever you're out doing probably isn't that pressing. Ok, maybe that's a little harsh but seriously, what are you going to do with this thing?

hack-a-day from the waffleiron! saw it on there and had to come here to buy one.

Can you set up the web page so that friends and family can operate this when they want?

I'm in.
I purchased the Spykee one on here as well and it's awesome so I'm hoping this one does well and the bad review are just from people that dont know how to work tv remote. Great to use in office.

Let me speak on behalf of us who live in Hawaii...

FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---

Toys "R" Us Review

Irobot had an item like this that went belly up.

irobot Connect

This thing is a wowwee compared to the Irobot item. about 20% of the price and looks cooler

dmosher42 wrote:Let me speak on behalf of us who live in Hawaii...

FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---

Now there's an idea. You buy a gross of them and put them on the beach or up on the caldera. charge .50 cents a min to us main landers to pretend we are there.

Whoa!

From what I see this is not something I want to deal with...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lJpY9Cz8Ps

Programmers can have a lot more fun with the Rovio than many of WowWee's other products. I was in a team of 5 students in a class that spent a whole semester working with one.

Right out of the box, the rovio isn't "programmable" in the sense of being able to write something in C or Java or whatever and save it onto the rovio itself. But since the api at http://www.wowwee.com/static/support/rovio/manuals/Rovio_API_Specifications_v1.2.pdf shows how to send commands over HTTP to get it to do stuff, you CAN write a program that instead runs on your computer, and have the computer send/receive wirelessly to the rovio.

So if the phrase Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping mean anything to you, then you'll love hearing that yes, it's possible. We did it. The rovio would take webcam shots, send them back to the computer, the computer would analyze the view and decide what to do next, then send the next movement/camera commands to the rovio.

The biggest issue we had with it was that with our team's Java program, the wheel encoders didn't seem to work as the api described (hopefully fixed in an update by now) so we used dead reckoning back then. A competing team writing in C instead claims their wheel encoders worked fine.

ckeilah wrote:Will it switch from AP to AP as it travels around, or is it tied to one single wi-fi Access Point?

How big are the rooms in your house? Are you planning to drive it down the street?

I'm sure it's tied to a single access point, since you have to set up WiFi security related to once specific wireless connection.

an addendum to my previous post to explain why we used dead reckoning: at no point in our school project were we even allowed to use TrueTrack. Given a good enough program, you might be impressed with how well you can get this thing to navigate without TrueTrack beacons (especially if, like that competing team instead of my team like I mentioned, you can get the wheel encoders to work).

It is some sort of cross-over toy placed on Earth by the Geth! (See Mass Effect 1 or 2)

I know I may be a little late to the party, but am I the only one who gets the reference to the greatest mother f'n band in the land????

Does anyone know if you can record video with this thing? If so, what's the quality?

How about battery life before having to recharge?

Horrible reviews on Amazon.

Neat and useful idea though. Maybe waiting for next generation is a better way to go.

I want one. Just wish I knew why. Not enuf Woot Wine in me to pull the trigger on this one.