Femisapien
item #8001 by WowWee
Finally - a female companion for Robosapien! While not technically
the first female robot ever, this is the most advanced and well
designed. I will definitely be on the lookout for this one
when it's released.
Amazon.com was running a Christmas special on these robots, so I picked one up for $40 with free shipping. I am so glad that I waited for the price break. Had I paid $100 for this when I first came out, I would have felt, at the least, gypped.
Unlike the rest of the WowWee line of robots, Femi doesn't come
with a remote control. You select one of her
behavior modes (attentive, learning or responsive) by tilting her
head in one of three directions. You use her hands like joysticks
- touching them alters her motion. Or you can optionally control
her using the original Robosapien V1 remote. She has 56 built-in
functions with another 68 special hidden functions
- or so WowWee claimed. It seems when pressed for these 'special
functions', we learn that they are really nothing more than the
commands sent using an RSV1 remote! She can, however, tell your
other WowWee robots what to do via her own built-in IR
transmitters. Typical female!
I have heard that she will "sense gestures that you make," but the only sensors that could even be remotely visual (no pun intended) are dual infrared receivers. I might could understand how you could use IR pairs for distance or object detection, or even motion in general, but I'm not sure how you could use infrared to detect 'gestures'. From practical experience, the only 'gesture' that I can see she senses is waving your hand in front of her. Not exactly 'gesture recognition' in my opinion.
For her next trick - Start some music playing and she'll begin dancing like a pop princess. Only the moves are monotonous and repetitive and annoying after more than a minute. Videos on YouTube would seem to show her movements as are extremely fluid, and while I agree that they are impressive, they are not nearly as awesome 'as seen on TV'.
Year Released: 2008
Original Price: $99
Technical Specifications:
Power Supply:
6 x AA batteries
Dimensions: 15" tall x 8" wide
Weight: 1.5 lbs
