Holiday Gift Idea: ROMO Smartphone Robot

***Disclosure: I received complimentary samples to facilitate my review. No other compensation was provided, and all opinions are 100% honest and have not been influenced in any way.***

So what do you get the tech-lover who just happens to have everything? This is something I ponder daily, since I have both a teen boy and a husband to shop for during the Holiday season. They both love games, science, and of course, any electronic gadgets they can get their hands on. It must be a guy thing. 

Recently, while I was trying to find fun, unique gifts for my hard to shop for guys, I discovered the ROMO. He is a real life robot that is powered by your iOS device. (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.) That's right...Your smartphone or device acts as the ROMO's brain. He has his own unique personality, and even adapts to his surroundings over time. How cool is that?! 

ROMO Features :

• Face Tracking- Romo can follow your face, just like having a pet or friend! 
• Wi-Fi Control- Control your robot using and iOS device over a Wi-Fi network.
• Mobile Training Program- Learn the basic concepts of programming in a fun, interactive way.
• Simple SDK- Control ROMO's hardware and personality by creating your own apps. 
• Personal Curious Pet-Leave ROMO by himself and he'll be sad. He will also search his surroundings for companionship. 
• Telepresence/Remote Control- Control your robot from anywhere in the world or invite others to control him remotely! 
• Control or access ROMO from anywhere in the world
• Two-way audio/video between smart devices
• Face and object detection
• Free mobile updates with new behavior packs
• Learn behaviors from other robots in the wild
• Visual programming to create new custom personalities

Check out this brief video that shows ROMO in action: 

Change Generation | Romotive from BFD Productions, LLC. on Vimeo.

Our review of the romo :

We received a ROMO Smartphone Robot to check out for ourselves. Boy, let me tell you, my husband and kids were super excited when this cute little guy arrived at our home. 

ROMO comes complete with the ROMO base unit, complete with treads that allow him to move freely throughout the room, a power cord, and a very humorous and entertaining instruction manual. Yes guys, you're going to actually want to read the directions. I promise, not only will you learn about your new robot pal, you'll also get a good laugh! 

Once we made sure our iPod Touch was charged, we downloaded the ROMO app and placed our iOS device into the ROMO base. When our robot came to life, we started programming him...One of the first things we did was give our friend a name. My husband, the weirdo, named our robot "Umfufu". The kids found it hysterical, so I suppose that's all that matters. 

The neat thing about ROMO is that he can be programmed to perform different actions, show a wide variety of emotions, and even speak! What I love is that this gives kids an intro into computer programming in a fun, engaging way, no confusing code required! As kids get more confident in their programming skills, they can teach ROMO to do more and more. He is constantly evolving and adapting. 

Umfufu was definitely amusing to play with. Check out his cheesy grin as our kitten, Truffles, sniffs him out. The cats seem to love chasing our ROMO around, and this is quite an amusing thing to watch. 

ROMO shows a ton of different emotions, and you can program him to react to each display of emotion. You can also set up sequences where different faces and emotions are shown one after the other. 

I think the thing my family likes most about the ROMO is the fact that you can train him to recognize and react to individual faces, and you can also train him to seek out certain colors and chase them. We tried this earlier with our daughter, Sophie, and it was a blast. She was wearing an all pink outfit, and ROMO was programmed to chase down anything that's pink. He can even be programmed to photograph the subject he's seeking. Yes, he chased my daughter around the room, and yes, she LOVED it! 

Another very awesome feature of the ROMO is the fact that you can control it from anywhere in the world, and even allow others to take over the reigns. This is great for communicating with far-away friends and relatives. Can't you just imagine ROMO helping the kids give a real-life home tour to Grandma? 

Overall, we're definitely loving our ROMO Robot pal. It's such a fun concept, and I love how interactive it is. Add to that the fact that it helps teach kids how to program? Even better! If you're looking for a tech gift that's sure to please folks of all ages, definitely check out the ROMO. This creative gift is guaranteed to elicit smiles from everyone around, and since he is always evolving and changing to suit his "family" and surroundings, you won't get bored easily. 

Romo is currently available for iPhone 5, iPod Touch 5, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod Touch 4 at Brookstone and Romotive.com this holiday season!
 
You can learn more about ROMO by checking out the following links: the Romotive website 
ROMO on Facebook
ROMO on Twitter
ROMO YouTube 
ROMO on Vimeo