Major Toy Robot Invasion coming this Fall

Jul 21 2007, 6:00am CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

A new generation of toy robots is set to invade homes this fall. WowWee pioneered toy robots with the Robosapien back in 2004. Now a whole new generation of toy robots is offered by several companies.

WowWee's new line of robots is not at the cutting edge for this fall. At the CES 2007 the company announced the RoboQuad, RoboBoa and RoboPanda. Compared to what the competition has to offer the look rather lame. The hottest contender for taking home the robot toy of Holiday season 2007 is the PLEO baby Dino robotic life form from Ugobe. Pleo will sell for $349 and start shipping in Mid-October. When you get PLEO it is a one week old Camarasaurus that will evolve over time. If that is not cool, what is? PLEO makes heart breaking noises too. You have to love him.
More details about Pleo can be found here.

In the Humaniod robot category the Tomy i-SOBOT will set new standards. The world's smallest humanoid robot features 200 action patterns including Hula dancing and air guitar playing. The tiny fellow will sell for $245 starting in October in Japan. No release date for the US or Europe has been given yet. More details about i-Sobot.

French Meccano (US label: Erektor) will release a robot kit dubbed Spyke in Fall.
Spyke features a Wi-Fi connection and integrated camera, microphone and speaker. Spyke can be used as a VOIP phone and webcam and is compatible with Skype's latest VoIP software - version 3.0 (PC). It is also playing MP3 music files.
The Spyke robot kit allows you to build different looking robots.
The release of Spyke is in September for Europe and October for the US. Pricing is supposed to be approximately 270 USD in the US and 250 € in Europe. More details about Spyke.

Hasbro will release the futuristic styled Mio Pup dog robot. It can walk and play music. The low-cost toy will sell for $48.87 starting October 1st. More details on Amazon.com.

I am not sure if I forgot a toy robot that will come on the market this Fall. If you know about a cool robot I omitted in this report, please email me.

where to buy

Buy from Amazon

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Luigi Lugmayr
Luigi is the founding chief Editor of I4U News and brings over 15 years experience in the technology field to the ever evolving and exciting world of gadgets. He started I4U News back in 2000 and evolved it into vibrant technology magazine.
Luigi can be contacted directly at ml@i4u.com. Luigi posts regularly on LuigiMe.com about his experience running I4U.