Users can now smile, frown, wink or or nod their head to control the rolling robot via the “Face Drive” feature in the related mobile app. The technology uses a smaller accelerometer and gyroscope. But unlike the original, Mini has an outer shell that must come off in order to charge it the toy, measuring about 1.6-inches in diameter.
“Sphero Mini stemmed from an internal program we recently started — the Sphero Product Accelerator — where we take a week to let anyone in the company, from marketing to finance to product team, pitch a product idea,” said Adam Wilson, Sphero’s co-founder. “Mini was a concept I had and with the help of one of our engineers, Anya (Grechka, mechanical engineer), we were able to pack the capabilities of a Sphero into the smaller size.”
The other thing Sphero shrunk? The price tag. At $49.99, Mini is about one-third the launch price of the company’s popular Star Wars’ BB-8 robot.
“When I started Sphero this was my first goal, get our robotic ball to an affordable price point and a size you can take anywhere,” Wilson said. “…The cost of the tech that goes into a Sphero has also gone down since we first came out with Sphero making this price point more feasible.”
