When Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters, we all became instantly infatuated with the adorable rolling droid, BB-8. To answer the call of the Star Wars fandom’s obsession, Sphero released a BB-8 robot toy that could roll around your house independently, talk, and more—all controlled by an app on your phone. Suddenly, Star Wars fans around the globe could have their very own droid companion. Now that as the release of The Last Jedi looms, Sphero is adding to its droid family.
Take a look at the video Sphero released to meet your new droid superfriends!
That’s right, as CNN reports, Sphero has finally–finally!–announced that they are releasing an R2-D2 toy, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. While the BB-8 toy is wonderful, it’s great that we can all finally add the original sassy droid to our Star Wars collections. Of course, if you find yourself cheering more for the Dark Side, there is a robot companion for you, too. In The Last Jedi, we’ll be introduced to BB-8’s evil, astromech droid-twin, BB-9E. Sphero is releasing its own BB-9E robot in anticipation of the droid’s big screen debut.
BB-9E can follow commands like “patrol”, “turn around”, and “run away”, and has the same draw-and-drive function that Sphero first rolled out (pun absolutely intended) for the BB-8 toy. Meanwhile, Artoo can not only travel about via the app, but it also has functions that allow it to waddle and fall over just Artoo does in the films. Additionally, all three droids have LED lights that help animate their expressions when they “talk” in classic droid beeps, chirps, and whirs.
Just like the original BB-8 toy, you can watch the Star Wars films with the droids, and they’ll react to the events happening in the film (though, unlike R2-D2 and BB-8, BB-9E will be cheering for the bad guys). Even more fun, if you decide you need to have all three toys in your house, not only can you have the best Star Wars viewing party ever, but all Sphero app-enabled droids will interact with one another.
What makes these droids unique is that they don’t just do cute tricks. As Sphero CEO Paul Berberian told CNN, Sphero doesn’t think of these droids as toys, but “as droids come to life.” The team worked really hard to make the toys look, sound, and more importantly act just like the film versions of the droids. And from the looks of the new product video, they have done a killer job.
The BB-8 droid is available now, and the Artoo ($179) and BB-9E ($149) droids will become available Friday at midnight. Happy Force Friday to us!
What do you think of the new droids? Which ones would you like to add to your collection? Tell us in the comments!
Want more The Last Jedi stories?
- Here are the new vehicles in The Last Jedi.
- Meet Snoke’s personal bodyguards.
- Celebrate all things porg!
Image credits: Star Wars/Sphero
