Rovio is another product from WowWee, the company behind RoboSapien and many others. We're used to see good products coming out of this company, and Rovio seems to be one of them.Rovio is, of course, a robot, but not the kind of robots we discussed so far. It's not an humanoid, it looks more like a futuristic car. It has 3 wheels and their unique design allows Rovio to move in any direction effortlessly.
Looking at Rovio's features we find resemblances with Spykee, both being robotic sentries that wander the house, remotely controlled by a software application. Although technically similar, their target market is different. Spykee is clearly for kids, but Rovio can easily be and adult geek toy.
Rovio has a mounted webcam (that can tilt up and down), microphone and speaker. With it you can patrol (or spy) the house and interact with other people (or pets). We could say it's a webcam with wheels! In fact, Rovio seems like a good candidate as a VOIP client. Of course, the webcam angle may not be the best to talk to another person. It may be tricky to focus on their face, unless they're sitting on the floor. But it sure can be funny.
Apart from person interaction, Rovio can be used to patrol you house. You can define a route and Rovio will follow it, sending you pictures to your email.
As with other automated robots, Rovio has a base where it can be recharged. Fortunately, Rovio knows how to feed himself, meaning that he knows where the base is, and move there when the batteries are low.
As said before, Rovio comes with a software that gives you full control over Rovio's functions. This software can be run from any computer, as long as it has Internet access. You can control and see Rovio's webcam from anywhere in the world. For this to happen, Rovio has an internal WiFi antenna that connects it to the Internet, thus allowing access from the bundled software.
Rovio can be seen as a toy or as a simple security gadget. Either way, it looks cool.
(Image from www.robotsrule.com)
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