Two recent announcements of new robotic smart toys from Innovation First and Robonica serve to illustrate an important trend in the robotic smart toy market–the creation of an online presence for the toys. While much of the content in Robotics Business Review focuses on the business-to-business (B2B) industrial and service robotics markets, the business-to-consumer market (B2C) of robotic smart toys is viable and expanding.
Robotic smart toys are intelligent extensions of classical toys for children. They come in a wide variety of form factors, although animals, animal-like creatures, and classical robotic form factors predominate. Most robotic smart toys are mobile and many have low-cost consumer electronics technology such as media players, webcams, and cameras embedded in them. Robotic smart toys usually include some combination of infrared, touch, and stereo sensors so that they can produce actions based upon receiving stimuli from people or their surroundings. Many types are controlled directly or programmatically.
Some readers of Robotics Business Review might consider the robotic smart toys market as less viable than more “serious” markets–say, the industrial robotics sector or the healthcare robotics market. That would be a mistake. To understand why, consider this: The Toy Industry Association pegs the 2008 toy industry at $7 billion. No mistake, that’s billion with a “B.”
For comparison, the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit robotics organization representing more than 15 countries, estimates the 2008 worldwide total for industrial robot sales at about $6.2 billion. It is true that robotics-oriented products account for only a small fraction of the worldwide toy sales. However, it is equally true that the percentage will increase, more so if educational robotics technology is also included in the tally.
The two new robotic smart toy products, the HEXBUG Nano from Innovation First Inc., based in Greenville, Texas, and the Roboni-i by Robonica, based in Beverly, Mass., differ in form and functionality, but both include a feature that links the physical robots to the virtual world of the Web.
HEXBUG Nano owners, for example, can log in to www.handandstars.com to play games, learn about science and famous scientists, and keep track of their collection. Similarly, owners of Roboni-i can log in to www.roboni-i.com to download games, train for matches by running through online “missions,” schedule matches, and track standings.
The addition of mobility, autonomy, and intelligence to traditional toys has resulted in a new toy submarket-robotic smart toys. Further extension of these products from the physical world to the virtual world of the Web increases the play value of the robotics toys and makes them even more compelling. The exact type of online component incorporated into robotics smart toys is not the point. The online options and opportunities available to developers of robotic smart toys (and educational robots) are limited only by the imaginations of their developers. The point is that all robotics smart toys should include an online component-not as a differentiator, but as core fun functionality that will enable the toy to remain competitive against other robotic smart toys, as well as traditional toys and video games.