Meccano Spykee The Wi-Fi Spy Robot

I've had the Spykee robot for a few days and here are my first impressions, positive and negative.

The robot took me a few hours to build. I'm sure you could build it quicker but I took my time. The instruction manual is pretty good and once it's built it only takes a short time to get the thing working over WiFi - assuming you understand WiFi and how to use and configure wireless networks. It's a good idea to follow the suggestion of getting the robot working in 'local' mode, then in 'local remote' mode, then full remote mode. The robot has its own inbuilt wireless transmitter for 'local' mode and a receiver for other modes. For all modes other than local, you connect the robot to your wireless router so you do not have to have a PC running all the time if you want to connect to your robot when you are away from home. I've had a couple of issues with the robot failing to connect to my router and I suspect that's because it's wireless range is not as good as my PC - but it's not bad. You control the robot using a custom GUI that you download from the Meccano website. The GUI is pretty average. There is no help on the GUI and you're expected to know what the various buttons do by reading the manual (also downloaded from the Meccano website). Once you've figured out the GUI it's pretty easy to control the robot and send it around your house. Overall I'd say it's a decent gadget and you'll enjoy playing with it and I'm sure a couple of minor quirks I've noticed with the GUI will be fixed in a later release of the GUI or a new firmware version for the robot. I have a few dislikes that I'd like to point out - mostly to do with what i take to be 'over optimistic' marketing of the product:
a) The robot is not designed for going up/down stairs - it'll fall over
b) The VOIP (voice over IP) capabilities are not integrated with Skype and you can only have a chat over IP if you have logon permission to the robot from a remote GUI. I'm sure the robot was originally touted as having Skype but it doesn't.
c) The robot has a surveillance capability which on the surface looks like a good security measure (and a reason for gadget freaks to justify the purchase to the Mrs.). However, you can only put the robot into surveillance mode if you are connected to it via the GUI and remain connected to it - which kind of defeats the object of having the robot looking after my house while I'm away if I have to be internet connected to the thing all of the time.
d)Battery life could be better
e) The robot has a 'self-dock' feature whereby it can find its charging station when the battery is low. But it can only find the charger if it is situated within a few feet of the charger.

Our son (9) was very excited about getting the Spykee robot for xmas and spent quite a long time putting it together with some help.

Connecting to it was no problem at all and using the software is quite easy too, but perhaps not easy for people who don't know how to configure wireless network devices?

Great robot, BUT the thing falls to pieces and I would say that Meccano need to look at going back to using the usual nuts a bolts that they use for other products rather than the plastic "rawl plug" type things. Once you've used them I can't really see a way of reusing them. So to have the option of making three different robots is not really possible.

I have e-mailed Spykee support and have had a reply back to say that they've had a lot of e-mails over Christmas so there will be a delay in responding to my e-mail. This was now 6 days and I think the automated reply speaks for itself so Spykee is now being returned.

I cannot recommended this for children.

This Robot toy is a must have christmas toy this year, its fun reliable and very very addictive. You can have hours of fun with this. I took my time with this, overall 3 hours to built.

Lets start with the good parts, its great quality very easy to set up and use and most of all its great fun to play and spy on mates and family members in the house. Most of all your are able to control your robot from far distances.

Lets finish on a bad note and with the instruction booklet, this is very frustrating when you are unable to read the actual images let alone the writing itself. Also some of the colours do not fit into the allocated slots, and some dont even go there at all, And so much for the 8+ a 60 year old would not even be able to do this!

Overall i would reccommend getting this toy for play or for show it is a fantastic product, but i would recommend downloading the manual from their website before buying just to get a feel for what your letting your self into, Its a very tricky thing to built and you will need the brain and the time to make the built.