Have you ever imagined owning a robot
that allows you to have some of the best quality time with your kids?
Or that can sit with you no matter how late you are working so you will never feel lonely?
Now, this is all possible with the roboBeats,
an interactive robot speaker.
Hey, what’s up? Sami here. Today I’d like to introduce a little cute desktop companion bot
that you might be interested in.
This roboBeats is a clock and a Bluetooth speaker.
Not only that, it dances with music and interacts with you.
But, is it any good? Let’s take a closer look.
The product I got to test was a prototype
and I guess the final version might have different packaging or product design.
The company behind roboBeats is Elephant Robotics, they are known for making different kinds of robots.
Actually last year they reached out to me with their mini robotic arm called myCobot.
But I never made the review video since I’m not so good with coding
and I felt it would take lots of time to learn
and I couldn’t spare that. So I just unboxed it, and that’s it.
But is it difficult to use the roboBeats? Please watch till the end of this video to find out!
Out of the box, we have the charger and the robot. The first thing you will notice
regarding the design of the roboBeats, is this elliptical display.
It has rich expressions.
There are two arms on the sides.
Moving to the back, we see the volume rocker,
a power key, and the charging port. Of course we have the speaker there.
We’ll play some music in a second.
There is a type-c port at the bottom as well, which they use for programming.
It is a little bit awkward though,
because whenever you want to connect to your computer,
you have to lay the robot down.
But gladly, Elephant Robotic engineers told me that for the mass production unit
they will either move the socket up or merge it with the charging port. That’s a great news!
Besides that, the roboBeats’ top and belly have built-in touch sensors.
When you touch them, it will respond.
But before that, let me walk you through the gesture controls.
Press and hold the power button to turn it on.
Once on, you can connect with your phone via bluetooth.
Find “roboBeats” in your Bluetooth list and click to connect.
Once connected, then you can control your music playing through the machine.
Press once on the volume key to turn up or down the music.
Press and hold the volume key to skip to the previous or next track.
You can mute the music by pressing the power key.
To unmute just press the volume up key once.
That’s quite standard for a bluetooth speaker.
There is a “Clock Mode”.
We press and hold both Volume + and Volume – at the same time to switch to Clock Mode.
This is a fun part,
roboBeats’ right arm controls “Hour”.
Flick up for the number to go up, press down for the number to go down.
The left arm is for “Minute”, it is the same way to adjust as the hour.
Once you have confirmed and move both arms inward you are good to go.
That’s basicallly the gesture controls. Easy and intuitive.
You might wonder what it can do.
Well, there are three modes. One is that Clock Mode I just showed to you.
Another is the Bluetooth Mode.
In this mode, the roboBeats will dance to the music’s tempo…
sort of…
However, in this mode, it can’t display time, or respond to your touch.
If you want that, then you have to enter the Autonomous Mode.
You can disconnect your bluetooth if you are in Bluetooth Mode,
or when it just powered on it will enter this mode automatically.
In this mode, the roboBeats acts autonomously.
It will perform actions like “Eat, drink,
(Now, he is drinking...)
exercise” etc.
We can pat its head or touch its front to let it perform different actions.
Not only that, the brushless motors that drive the arms has no sound at all, it’s super quiet.
I think one of the key features that the roboBeats has is it supports programming.
So if you want some new actions, you can just program it.
Like when I’m having fun with my daughter Cristina,
she always has this gesture, she will pat her head with both hands and say “This worries me”.
See, she is only 4 years old and she has so much to worry about.
Maybe she is worrying that you guys don't subscribe to her Daddy's channel!
Yeah, please subscribe.
Anyway, I will just code that gesture to the robot.
Like I said, I’m still really not good at coding. And here it is.
What do you think of that? I would say not bad right? At least my daughter loves it.
That’s basically what this roboBeats can do and its specialty.
Before heading to my conclusion of this unit,
let’s give this speaker a listen, shall we?
I think the sound is fine for a small speaker like this. What do you think?
To conclude, I think overall the roboBeats is definitely a fun desk pet companion to have.
Like for me, I always work till very late and with one of these on my desk,
it just made my working less dull. It’s responsive and fun.
It has more personality than others and it can also
be of great help for your productivity.
Sure, it doesn’t replace those expensive robots with wheels like the Clicbot that I’ve reviewed before
or some real serious robots like the Diablo I’m about to review.
But I can see the logic here.
It’s just aiming to provide you a desktop companion and lets you get the least
distraction from it whilst you still focus on your work.
The Auto Sleep Cycle feature on the roboBeats
avoids over-interruption and is definitely one of the best.
One thing I wish they can add is a microphone or something so when my daughter talks to it, it’ll
repeat what she says in a funny way or even mimic the movement or something,
yeah, just like that.
that would be a perfect toy. But this is a $90 bot with so much offered already.
I can’t complain about that too much,
and if you are interested in it, please check out the link in the description
and back the project now!
Thanks for watching. I’m Sami and I will see you in the next one!