Sphero Ollie Darkside Robotic Toy {Review}

I can remember growing up and my younger  brothers desperately wanting remote control toys.  I can remember how quickly they were disappointed when they broke within a few days.    The quality and the durability of the toy never seemed to match the exuberance of my rough and tumble brothers.  I have never bought my boys anything remote controlled just for this reason.  I have not wanted to have to deal with the disappointment and frustration.  And then it happened, my son kept asking for a remote controlled toy….and kept asking and kept asking.  I was in a tough spot, I didn’t want to feel like I was throwing away good money.

I was presented with the opportunity to test out  Ollie Darkside from Sphero.  I had heard of them before and they looked cool but would they stand up to the test of two boys?  Only one way to find out, we would test it with our boys!   And how did it do…..pause for effect….IT PASSED WITH FLYING COLOURS!!!

Here are some of the cool details about the Darkside, like its predecessor Ollie,  Darkside connects via Bluetooth to your phone or tablet.  It can travel up to 14mph at a range of 100 feet.  It is a little app-enable robot that does some amazing tricks. Darkside is ‘Devious. Defiant. Diabolical. Dangerous’.

Getting ready to play

When you first connect it to your phone or tablet it asks for a name, ours is called ‘The Inquisitor’ (its a Star Wars thing my sons came up with). From there the app offers tutorials and demos to get you started.  From there you can get the Darkside to spin, hop, turn on a dime, drift and race. It lights up different colours with different functions.  There are two sets of tires and hubs to suit different terrains and perform different tricks.

A quick tire change

We have been testing it for a few months to make sure it would not break before recommending it.  It has been used inside and out on multiple types of terrain by both of our boys as well as hubby and I.  I can say it is a tough little toy, it FAR exceeded my expectations.

And if you need further proof of how fun it is check out my boys running around playing with it, at one point they hit the brick wall with it and just keep going.

Disclosure: I was gifted product for review consideration, this is however not a paid post and all opinions and views on this post are 100% my own.