Desk Pets CarBot Robotic car and app review

I was recently asked to review a new product called CarBot from mydeskpets.com. They sent me over a tiny red Carbot with a dongle remote adaptor.  The website claims that Carbot is the first micro-robotic race car that you can control from your smart phone. This sounds like a great concept! A remote control car that uses your smartphone as a remote! The car comes with a Smart phone adaptor that plugs into your phones headphone jack. They also include a set of 4 micro batteries for the adaptor. 

            The instructions tell you to plug the microcar into any usb device to charge for about 40 minutes or so and you could have 20 minutes of playtime. The back of the car has a USB plug that flips down and plugged into my usb adaptor connected to my laptop.  

While it was charging I downloaded the app onto my Samsung Galaxy S2 phone.  The website supports apps for iphones, ipads, and android phones.  After downloading the app I followed the on screen instructions and plugged the adaptor into the phones headphone jack.  I then powered the adaptor on and right my music player screen opened up.  This was a bit frustrating.  I took me several tries to shut down the music player.  Finally I was able to turn on the adaptor without opening the music player. 

            The instructions said to click here on the phones screen and the adaptors lights should flash.  This did not happen.  I tried this numerous times with no success. I then decided to reboot the phone thinking that would solve the issue.  Well it did.  I was then able to get the adaptor to work.  The next screen was a remote control panel with a forward and back gear shifter, a steering wheel, and a fire, turbo and stop buttons. 

  I then powered up the car and took it for a ride in our living room.  The car was very difficult to control with the remote.  Several times the car sped away underneath a piece of furniture.  Needless to say I had to retrieve it with a ruler. 

            I figured I would let my 10 y.o. son give it a try since he is the toy person in the family.  He was   better at controlling the car than I was. To me it was quite frustrating since it was very difficult to drive the car and steer at the same time.  I think the remote touch screen features take some getting used to.  I think this is a decent product if you’re bored at home or in your office.  But it seems to lose its appeal quickly because the car is difficult to drive and control.

The CarBot was provided to us by “My desk pets” in order to test out the product’s capabilities.  The views expressed in this review are mine and mine alone.