Sphero - R2-Q5 - Black

I love this. I ended up buying both this and R2D2 and I’m so glad I did. I just can’t stop playing with all those droid on my floor. They’re amazing. So authentic

I got this R2-Q5 for my 11 year old boy as a Christmas gift. He likes to play with it. Actually, our whole family like to play with it.

The only problem i had was i could not get the remote it was supposed to have to control it instead of trying with a Smartphone. Ended up having to return it because of that.

The Droid I was looking for! This bad little Imperial Droid is like R2-D2's evil twin from another mother. Makes a totally different sound set than R2-D2, but is as responsive and interactive as any of the other models. Watching the movies with all four is a blast! Truthfully your kids will play with it sometimes, but you will have more fun than them with these Droids! Looks great on the shelf too!

The craftsmanship of this bot is amazing and watching it drive itself around in patrol mode is great; however sphero needs to put a bit more effort into it's wall detection algorithms. I have BB-8 and BB-8 does a fanatic job of learning where the walls are when in Patrol mode and then avoid them. Both the R2-Q5 and the R2-D2 that I have suffer from the same problem - they seem to be unable to figure out that they are hitting a wall and so they touch the wall and just keep driving into it. Eventually they stop trying to drive through the wall but then are unable to back themselves up, or even figure out how to turn around. The frustrating part about this is what when this happens, you pick them up, move them back to the center of the room and they go straight back to the same wall and do it all over again. If you're driving them yourself they are great, but patrol mode needs some more intelligence built in. Overall these are a joy to see in action and the sound effects coming directly off the robot instead of from the mobile device is amazing.

This is a neat remote controlled robot according to the hype surrounding it. And truth be told, it could be... if.... IF .... you get one that actually works properly. My first R2Q5 wouldn't charge properly. There was no indication anywhere on the robot that it was charging. So, I went back to the store I purchased it from and had a horrible experience with Best Buy's customer service simply trying to get an even exchange. A customer service manager got involved and finally managed to straighten out the exchange. That in of itself really shows how poor the customer service has become at Best Buy when a manager has to get involved for something as simple as an even exchange. The second robot I got does charge properly. I noticed that a small light is near the charging port, something I did not see on my first robot. It glows orange when charging, then green when it's fully charged. I think Sphero should have thrown in some animation on the robot to show it's charging, like they did with BB8 when it's charging properly. The app controlling the droid what I would call merely ok. I would have liked to have seen a battery measure on the app showing how much charge is left on the robot before a recharge is necessary. If I missed finding that in the app, let me know for my future reference. R2Q5 also seems like it's a bit unbalanced when it's moving around. I think perhaps it may be a design fault that the robot has, I don't know. The price on the robot is crazy at over $100+. I bought this on clearance for $49.99 before sales tax but even at that price point I feel it's still too high. I guess Best Buy can charge what they want for this particular robot as it's their exclusive. So overall, I'd have to say I'm less than impressed. To be fair, I suppose it's just an average remote controlled novelty with its various boops, beeps and other noises it makes and nothing more beyond that, much like the previous BB8 robot. And yes, I would recommend getting an extended warranty on it should you decide to buy it. Why? There's no way to replace the rechargeable battery on this item so once it quits holding a charge, you have nothing more than a paperweight. Also, the tracks on R2Q5 appear to be made from a very thin type of rubber so once they break that also may not be reparable. Keep those things in mind along with the poor customer service at Best Buy when making your decision on buying this product for yourself.

R2-D2 has been a mainstay of Star Wars history for a long time...but what about the OTHER astromech droids from the Star Wars movies? From the Prequels, all the way through the original trilogy and into the new movies, we've seen astromech droids of all colors, shapes and sizes. The R2-Q5 astromech droid is one of the Imperial units, and has never gotten attention...until now. Thanks to the Sphero group, who first introduced BB-8 following The Force Awakens, we're able to add yet another member of the astromech droids to our collections: R2-Q5, one of the Imperial droids onboard the Death Star II in Return of the Jedi. That's right, he bit the big one when Lando and the Rebels blew it up, but R2-Q5 can be yours. He's the same size as the R2-D2 unit offered by Sphero, approximately twice the size as BB-8 and BB-9E (the new Imperial / First Order droid in The Last Jedi) and he has all the bells and whistles that R2-D2 has...with some differences. He sounds different, but still has the goodies you'd want to find in an astromech droid. Even if you don't use him alot of playing and running around the floor using your smartphone or ForceBand to control him, R2-Q5 makes a really great display piece on your shelf or desktop. A guaranteed conversation piece whenever your friends or co-workers stop by and see Q5 sitting there.

I'm sort of a pseudo-techno geek and a HUGE Star Wars fan, so the opportunity to OWN an actual operating Star Wars droid was like a dream come true. I started with BB-8, only because he was the first available. Now I also have R2-D2, BB-9E and R2-Q5 the First Order's answer to R2-D2. The First Order R2 unit is very easy to control with the app (I don't have the Power Wrist Band). You have to be careful about doing any kind of function without the middle tread down, because he will fall over with some of the actions that can be activated from the app. My favorite though, is when all 4 droids are interacting autonomously. When I first set up the new 3 (R2-Q5, BB-9E and R2-D2), and made them autonomously interact, BB-9E bumped BB-8. So BB-8 decided to go all the way across the surface they were on and take a running shot at BB-9E. It knocked the BB-9E off the surface. (I don't think they like each other). Not what I was expecting. But still fun. Anyway, the R2-Q5 is a really cool shiny black and the sounds that he makes are different than R2-D2's. And he makes a great collectible too. And Sphero allows you to write your own code to control their robots, including the Star Wars droids. I haven't had time to try that yet.