Assistant robots, robot dogs, STEM kits, and interactive toys: what actually ships, what the subscriptions really cost, and which toys still get updates.
Match the kit to the child rather than to the age printed on the box. Ages 5 to 8 do best with screen-free robots: Botley 2.0 at $79.99, or one Sphero indi at $150 (the $1,500 figure you may have seen is an eight robot classroom pack). Ages 8 to 12 can run an app … Read more
Checked against Apple’s and Google’s own store indexes on August 10, 2026: Vector, Miko, and Sphero Edu all have live, recently updated apps. Cozmo’s free app is gone, replaced by a $2.99 paid listing from the same developer. No MiP, CHiP, Boxer, or Zoomer app turns up in either index at all. Eilik never had … Read more
Robot toys fail in three places, and only two of them are fixable at a kitchen table. Batteries go first, and a swollen pack is a stop sign rather than a project. Gears strip second, which is the cheap repair: a matched replacement set runs about $11.99. The third failure is firmware and apps, and … Read more
Robot dog covers three machines that share a silhouette and almost nothing else. Toys are servo counts and sound banks with no camera and no idea where they are. Companions are built to be lived with, either through a sensor stack and a paid cloud plan, as Sony’s 22 axis aibo is, or by leaving … Read more
Boxer’s app is gone. A lookup against the app’s own App Store ID returned zero results on August 10, 2026, its Google Play listing 404s, and boxerthebot.com does not resolve. The robot is not bricked, though. Boxer shipped with an infrared remote and 10 activity cards, and a working unit still drives and still runs … Read more
Four robot dogs are worth buying in the US right now, and none of them is a best overall: the Joy For All Companion Pet Pup at $179.99, WowWee’s Dog-E at $79.99 while a real retailer still lists one, Sony’s aibo at more than $3,000, and Unitree’s Go2 starting at $1,600 before shipping and duties. … Read more
Four of these robots will ship to a US address today with no waiting list: Vector 2.0 at $199.99, EMO at $279, Eilik at $139.99, and Ropet, sold direct by its maker. ElliQ is leased rather than sold, $249 up front plus $39 to $59 every month, and it goes back when you stop paying. … Read more