The company will also introduce a new “battle-worn” BB-8 that’s more accurate to the droid’s appearance in The Force Awakens.
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Sphero now has two BB-8-related iOS / Android apps. The Force Band will be available for $79, but there’ll also be a special bundle with both the battle-worn BB-8 and Force Band for $199. Pointing your hand left and right makes it turn, and rotating your wrist spins the ball on its Y-axis when it’s at rest.
Occasionally, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice will pipe up from the Force Band’s speaker, telling the wearer there’s a presence in the Force nearby. You could play a game of BB-8 bocce and see who can get him closest to a wall without touching, or have BB-8 follow you around the house like he does with Rey, Finn, and Poe. One for the original BB-8 and a new one for the Force Band.
The Force Band has a separate “Combat Training Mode” that emits classic Star Wars sound effects synced to the wearer’s movements, such as lightsaber noises triggered by sharp arm swings, or TIE Fighter sounds that are kind of awesome when holding a toy and pretending to fly it around the room. It’ll scratch that Star Wars collector itch.
Driving BB-8 with the Force Band is a lot easier than using the app on a phone or tablet.
After you’ve advanced beyond Droid Control, you’ll be able to expand your abilities as BB-8 guides you through Force Training claims Sphero. Sphero tells us it hopes the rugged new design will appeal to more serious fans of the Star Wars franchise.
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That suite of functions expands with the new Force Band, a wearable device with a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope that translates a user’s hand motions into instructions for the droid. Another mode is a bit less polished – you scan your hand around areas in the real world looking for goodies to collect (like weapons to use in that other mode.) Getting into and out of these modes using just the band can be a bit of a pain – I ended up hard resetting the band plenty of times. When you want to bring him back, lower your arm to bring him to a stop then pull your arm toward you and BB-8 will roll back your way.
