On the weekends I like to jot down ideas for future posts, but this weekend it just didn’t happen. I’ve been having fun with Spykee, a pretty cool little toy that I purchased from Woot for half it’s regular price.

What is Spykee?

Spykee is about a one foot high wireless remote controlled toy that has audio, video, and motion sensitivities. With a few clicks from my PC I can turn on Spykee from anywhere in the world and drive him around my house. The cat was its first face to face visitor, and ever since then I have had a blast driving it around.

Because it can hear and has speakers, you can virtually talk and see others through your PC and Spykee. One of it’s first runs I was showing it to my wife. She was downstairs, and I was upstairs. The whole time I was talking to her while driving it around. When she later came upstairs we talked about it, and she didn’t even realize she was talking through Skypee. She thought she was talking directly to me.

What I Heard, What I Experienced

I heard mixed reviews. The two major complaints are that it takes too long to build, and it has poor directions. My reaction to the first complaint is that it is a Erector set. If you are unfamiliar to Erector, think of the company the same way you think of Lego. Erector sells kits that you put together like a model. It’s part of the fun. It took me about an hour and a half, and that was with excited kids bouncing around. If I had sat in my office by myself, it would have been done in less than an hour. It’s not hard to put together.

The second common complaint was poor directions, and that does have some merit. To use the toy it requires two sets of directions, one how to build, and one how to use with your PC. For some strange reason, they only give you instructions on how to build, and you have to download the how to use instructions. The issue within this, is that the how to build instructions had several errors, and even included a replacement page. I figured that out after I had a hard time figuring that particular part out. The how to use instructions however are very good, and very detailed, so you should have no problems connecting it.

A final mention about this toy/gadget is that many of you smarty pants will think…hey I will charge this up while I build it. That is a great idea honestly, something I thought I did. Something I didn’t realize is though, you need to switch it on for the charging to take place.

Very cool toy, its true test will come in durability. If you shop around for it, you will find it priced anywhere from $149 to $299. I got my for $100 on Woot. Was it worth a $100? You Bet!!!

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