Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Sphero’s future in robotics — CES 2016 interview”.
Everybody this is ross miller with the verge. It is CES 2016, and i am here with adam wilson, the co-founder and chief scientist of spiro. I don’t thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. So, let’s talk about this week.
Obviously BBA has been out for a little bit and how has it been so far? Actually, how has the BBA been so far? The bb-8 launch was absolutely incredible. It blew us away in every aspect from the you know, the fan reaction to just how crazy everybody’s been about it. I want talk about what you’re here for now, which is the force band. This is a wearable you’re working on yeah, so you know you can control the bb-8 through your smartphone with a nap and drive it around and have it patrol and stuff. We thought there is a cooler way to kind of experience the force in a new way. So we want to make a wearable wristband.
You could control the BBA through just that. Why make your own word well, why not integrate this with like an Apple watch or a samsung Smart Watch, or something like that? I think just control over the experience really and the whole Apple watching Samsung watch those are pretty expensive items and – and I don’t think a lot of children are going to be running around with those. So it gives like it gives the accessibility to. Like the you know, the lower price range and what is the price range we haven’t described it yet, but we’re working really hard on making that it. You know affordable for everybody.
Okay, perfect um, what’s interesting about this, so is this gon na work with the other spirit products as well? Is this something we can kind of say is get going toward the future? This is what’s Pharaoh wants to try. Let’S say sphere is going to try other wearable items at this band is specifically for the experience of the Star Wars, bb-8 droid, so this one’s tied directly to this, and only to this but sphere on general. You know we’re going to get much better making wearables. After we put this into the market and we’ll probably make a wearable for the rest of our products – and i will talk a little more serious business journal because obviously BB is not your first product at all and you guys are going through a much other phases. Basically, what you had before the big flagships pharaoh was the ball without the head.
I was saying it’s done very well like this, but when you going forward, do you see more these I kind of branded ideas or something like you really want take the company? Are you looking to like also kind of keep the key to your roots and we’re gon na? Do both we’ve realized that we’re pretty good at bringing characters to life? We can bring a character to life in a way that I don’t think other people have. So we think that that’s really important for us to bring characters to life, but we also have a whole new knology stack that we’re going to be pushing soon that it’s just kind of the next version of spirits, the next version of all of this stuff. It was interested me when you guys were announcing the BBA we kind of met with you guys. You made a point talking about how this is not just a toy. This is a robot. This is something we see has more than just entertainment purposes. Can you talk me where I’m like what that means for like spheres road map? Where were you guys, gon na see taking your products yeah, I think um you know, put the head on and all of a sudden everybody thinks he’s super cute and he’s a cute little friend or a companion or something, and that’s almost like the match of what You when you talk to somebody about an animal or a pet or like a cat or a dog, they have that same feeling. They can’t really explain why they think it’s still cute and why they love it.
So much so that’s part of what we’re trying to like really really focus in on it’s like those characteristic personalities of the robot. What else did it can we expect from zero um? We haven’t announced any of our other products, but those will probably be at CES. Next year, so you know we’ll be able to give a sneak peek of what that is, but you can just expect it to be really the next version of what we would do. You know we’ve kind of reached the maximum of character potential in a robot ball. So there’s gon na be more from us.
Well, I don’t think you so much for joining us yeah. Thank you very much, then, for all things. Bb-8 all things Star Wars and all things consumer electronics show be sure to check out the verge com or subscribe to YouTube, will do more things like this youtube.com slash the verge .