“Cozmo sees a pet”, noted the iPad while I was writing this review, before Cozmo, for some reason, started barking. If a winning personality can secure your affections, you’re done for the second you set eyes on a Cozmo. The faux-retro lo-fi picture is a nice touch the slightly flaky tilt-based steering, less so.īeyond that, there’s the step-based programming bit, where you can make Cozmo endlessly trundle in a square, pausing only briefly to say “sorry” as penance for earlier frenziedly attacking an iPad rather than pouncing on a finger.Īnki Cozmo verdict: We are dancing mechanic Cozmo’s head-mounted camera beams a video feed to your device, as you drive him about, scaring the cat and identifying ‘humans’. You’ll also have unlocked an Explorer Mode. Within a day or two, Cozmo will have learned to stack cubes and pounce on a finger (disconcertingly sounding like a metal Gremlin while doing so). This ensures you don’t exhaust the thing within hours, and that you properly explore what’s on offer before moving on. To encourage repeat visits, this stuff’s activated in a piecemeal manner using in-app currency earned by interacting with Cozmo.
There are daily tasks, which gradually unlock Cozmo’s capabilities: actions, games, and drag-and-drop ‘programming’ based on MIT’s Scratch. It’s entertaining to watch this random activity, but the app is where you properly interact with Cozmo and help make him smarter. Endlessly curious, he constantly explores his surroundings, emits a “WOAH!” the first time you dump one of the bundled power cubes in front of him, and whirls in triumph as he lifts it above his head. He zips about with a fascination that’s part toddler and part puppy. The real win, though, is Cozmo’s character. And all was fine when Cozmo hurled himself off of the desk twice during review when I wasn’t watching, as if to prove the point. Even so, I do wonder how robust the rubber tracks will be when Cozmo’s in the employ of a tiny person, and whether the forklift mechanism will survive too many trips from desk to floor.Īnki, for its part, says Cozmo’s been “drop-tested” and is “built to last”. Given that Cozmo’s primarily designed to be used by kids, the construction seems sturdy – and it should be at two hundred quid. His chunky design looks like the offspring of WALL-E and a forklift, and he burbles away in an amusingly daft manner likely to prick up the ears of Pixar lawyers. Still, once he’s scooting about, Cozmo is an adorable, joyful thing.
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