Robobuddy Wireless Remote Control Vehicle, White

Hmmmm ....where do you start with poorly designed stuff?I suspect anyone that has given 5 stars either sells these or only had it for a few days.I received my mine, it too had been opened previously.Oh well, tryed it anyway and got it to work a little bit.Never got it to work remotely, meaning unless your phone and the unit we're on the same wifi network then "No Go".After a little bit of use the unit wanted to continue to go to the right, so if you wanted to keep going in circles you might get a little more use out of it.Concept is great, implementation has lot to be desired.Software only has 2 1/2 or 3 star rating.Learned a lesson on this one, before you buy any of this type of product, find out what app it runs on and check the rating.It would be a good indicator of how well you can expect it to work.In short, KEEP LOOKING.

Ok I read all the reviews and took a chance. Before I go further I have to say that I am and engineer with a smart house, electronic training, a full shop, and was considering building a patrol robot from a developer platform or from scratch to video areas of my house not covered by fixed cameras and that I could operate remotely when I am out of town. To say I was skeptical of a under $100.00 robot is an understatement but a scratch project would take months and cost over $300.00 I was also in a hurry so I threw the dice.REALLY glad I did. Does this platform do everything as well as my $300.00 beheamoth would do? No, not quite, but its pretty darn close and it is CERTAINLY functional. The plusses first;1)good design of the rover,2)SUPERB customer service! (If you get in trouble, need parts, or have a tech issue, there IS an actual living human to help you at the other end of the phone call and they know what they are doing!)3)The GUI is very user friendly to use (setup not as much...more on that later) .4) The speed of the bot is perfect the robustness of the build is good to excellent and so far all the parts seem reliable. SPARE PARTS ARE AVAILABE if something breaks ( I found this out the hard way due to my housekeeper) so you can actually maintain this critter...A HUGE PLUS if you intend use not as a toy but as a functional device!!5) The design of the docking station is perfect! Any approach angle within 30 degrees of head on results in a solid dock and the GUI returns a charge indicator so you know you are docked and charging.6) The infrared vision is good and the transmitted picture quality is good even on lower resolutions ( VERY good at 800 mbps its highest setting)7) It can navigate any terrain that does not tip it over that is to say it will drive over the toe of your shoe with one track and be fine. Anything taller would be a problem for a bot this size but it has the power to do the job.Now for the negatives. First let me say that most are associated with the bandwidth required to operate as we would all like....smooth instant response and great video / sound. When my internet provider is not throttling this bot , to my delight, nearly achieves perfection. I have driven it from a movie theatre, a restaurant and a parking lot 10 miles from home and got either instant response or some small lag time where you drive in steps of about a foot every second to compensate for the lag to avoid smashing into a wall. (the video lags behind motion so you can drive into a wall before you see it on the video and then watch helplessly as the truth is revealed live on streaming video as it updates)I have yet to slam into anything remotely but I doubt it would do harm to bot or wall. Still, my best advice is practice makes perfect. If the internet connection is slow you are essentially driving a mars rover; you send a command and wait a second or two for refresh and update. Again takes practice and slows you down but this is an issue with your ISP NOT this robot!The only design upgrade faults I found are:1) The GUI still needs some user friendliness stirred into the mix for the setup and configuration portion. I solved my issues mostly by goofing around and with two brief calls to tech service.2) The battery is a nickel metal hydride multi cell and does not have a long duty cycle. I do not leave it on charge for more than 5 hours (it will fully charge in 1 hour or less) and while I leave the bot on the docking station I back it up an inch to turn off the charge indicator after it charges. Memory is possible but can be reversed by completely discharging and then fully recharging the cells a couple times. I would like to see the battery upgraded to a lithium IRON (LI FE) battery with a suitable BMS upgrade (battery management system). That cell has more power potential, is NOT the type of lithium that can go into thermal runaway (catch fire) and is a great battery. but that is a suggestion for the next gen of this bot because it WOULD add cost. I can run remotely for 30 to 45 minutes or stay in one place with the video on for several hours on one charge. It also lets you know when its running low and usually has enough juice to re-dock before dying. I have yet to strand it remotely but I've only had it a few days. It would be great if the system would allow you to park it at all times on the dock on a sleep mode and with the bms turning off at full charge state so you can wake it up remotely at any time and have the battery fully ready to support long duty cycles.3) The antenna is a weak spot of sorts. Its a good antenna but the coax cable going to it inside the bot is too short. This is only an issue if you mess up or the bot has an unfortunate accident (personal experience talking here)My housekeeper put the bot up on a table facing the same blinds I park it in front of. Thus the picture looked the same as it being on the floor. I was testing remote operation from the bedroom and drove it off the dock. I heard a loud crash....never a good sign... I came out to see the bot had fallen 3 feet to a tile floor,antenna first. The good news is that this is a rugged bot and was mostly unharmed. the antenna is also well designed with a snap on hinge and it simply snapped off without structural damage. The bad news...the coax inside the antenna was not long enough to allow for the flexion forceful removal of the antenna imparted and the wire was pulled apart. It looks like 28 or 30 awg mini coax and has no tensile strength. I opened the bot and luckily I have 28 awg coax in my shop so I simply repaired the break and the bot works fine but I ordered a replacement antenna anyway to fix it properly. YES they have replacement parts and the bot is easy to work on if you happen to be a proficient technician!4) The speaker and the voice output is the weakest feature. The volume on my unit is LOW LOW LOW> not an issue for my application but if you want to speak to the kids or carry on a remote presence conversation, the room has to be quiet as a morgue to hear the thing. Again for a $100.00 bot this is not suprising but a bigger speaker or a better amplifier would correct this issue. A minor complaint about an otherwise satisfying purchase!Anyway I will update as to the antenna replacement and how the bot continues to work but for now I HIGHLY recommend this device as a toy OR as a working unit for home and business!

Very unreliable connectivity. Tried 3 different units and none completely worked. Wouldn't work on every network. Worked at home, but not at work. 1st unit the camera wouldn't raise or lower. Eventually gave up.

Sometimes the robot works when I am using it over the internet. Sometimes it loses out on the connection and times out. So far it has been reliable and does provide a good quality feedback through the camera system. My only complaints is the lag it suffers from when being remote controlled.

first look:is constructed good and doesn't feel cheap comes with a ramp charger with cable,battery, robo buddy, instruction booklet, I researched the Riley and the MeE robot as well as a few other device before I made my decision to get the swift streams Robo BuddySet up:I have an android phone so I downloaded the app on the app store, configuring the robo buddy was easy (checked youtube videos for instructional clarity) and was able to get working with no problems. the app control is decent enough with basic features like: infrared, tilt controls, microphone, speaker, track grid, timestamp, record and camera stillsperformance:operates like a regular RC car surprising smooth and responsive, there some lag of about 2 seconds and this is depending on you connection on your WIFI router, camera picture quality is clear and camera is able to move up and down, travelling over obstacles proved to be no problem with the belt track, turning is a little touchy and has a tendency to over correct at times, speed is adequatedocking/charging:is easy to dock with some practice and you don't have to be in a straight line to dock the car. When the car needs to charge it will say on the screen "low power", when you dock it, there will be a lightening bolt in the battery icon. Battery life is adequate around 50 min and takes a few hours to charge.bad points:-good controls are dependent on your WiFi connection speed and your phone internet. With slow internet controls will be laggy and it takes time to connect on the app-the infrared is weak in my opinion and would do better with some headlights on the car itself such as a low powered LED, still its adequate for driving to seeing where your going in a dark room-the audio is delayed such as: when you speak to someone through the car you have to wait 3 seconds in order for you to hear the other person on the other end-track motors are noisy as compared to the other competitors and sounds like they strain at some points-electronic connections look cheap (I took apart the charger ramp) with improperly crimped connectors and not very good solder jobs but still adequate for the operation of the vehicle at this point but unsure of longevityconclusion: if you are looking for a basic home patrol mobile camera this is a good choice, priced at $70-$87 on Amazon