Introduction:
Welcome to my Koiiko Voice Controlled RC Car review. I have reviewed and owned quite a few RC cars in my time, but none have ever been quite as cool as this one when it comes to controlling them. Instead of a typical control with directional sticks, this makes uses of a watch that is worn on the wrist and this watch can control the car using a mix of physical buttons and your voice, yes that’s right your voice can actually control this thing.
Design:
I’ll start with the car’s design first and then move onto the watch. The car itself is rather chunky in appearance and has a Chrysler styling to it, well actually the one I am reviewing does. There are other models and colors available on the listing. While the material used is mostly plastic, the chunky style does give the car chassis quite a bit of strength, which is perfect as you’ll probably find that like me and my son, you’ll have quite a few crashes with this at first.
Also, present on the car are real lights that work as well as indicators that actually flash depending on the direction you are turning.
The watch part of the set doesn’t feel as nice as the car. The car has a thick plastic that feels tough when you knock on it, while the watch has a sort of hollow feeling plastic that gives it a slightly tacky feeling, that said though I suppose it isn’t a major issue as the watch isn’t thing that will be crashing into walls. The watch fits on my little boy’s wrist quite well and has a few different sizing options which means I can just get it to fit on my wrist as well.
There are five buttons on the watch, which are as follows:
- Left and right directional button. This is actually one large disc button with mound sticking out at each side of the watch, which makes it look sort of like a hidden steering wheel. Simply push down the side that represents which way you want to go.
- Engine start/stop button. This actually looks like an engine start/stop button you would find in most modern cars, except it’s on the front of a watch. Holding this down will start the engine or stop.
- Gear button. This allows you to shift between a high and a low gear to make the car faster or slower.
- Light/voice on and off button. This switches the lights and voice between on and off.
- Of course, there’s also the microphone which is used to make the car go forwards, backwards, stop and use turbo for a 2-second boost of speed.
Both the car and the watch have their own built-in batteries, which are charged using the included USB cable. The battery in the car can last about 20 minutes before needing a charge and takes about 50 minutes to fully charge. The battery in the watch can last 45 minutes and takes about 35 minutes t0 charge. It’s a bit unfortunate about the charging time as it means the car will probably spend more time charging than being played with.
The funtertainment test
My little boy absolutely loves RC cars and this one is no different. I do have to say though that he’s still not got the hang of the voice controls, but then again he is rather young. Talking of the voice controls, when they work they work quite well, but the system can be temperamental and sometimes it can take a good few tries for the system to recognise that you have given it a command, even when my voice was as clear as day it did sometimes struggle. The list of commands isn’t very big, so luckily there’s not a lot to learn. There are four commands in total which are as follows:
- Go forward. This command makes the car start to move forwards.
- Go back. This makes the car reverse.
- Turbo. This gives the car a 2-second speed boost.
- Car brake. This makes the car break to stop complete with breaking noises.
Once we do get this car going me and my little boy enjoy it for the most part, although the buggy voice commands do make it a bit frustrating to use and this, therefore, spoils the experience. When moving the car is rather speedy and reacts well to the steering input from the physical button on the watch. It works well on smooth surfaces such as laminate flooring but doesn’t work on thick carpets.
Overall:
This is a fun car when it gets going, unfortunately, the voice controls are quite temperamental and this can make playing with the car quite frustrating as without the voice controls you can’t make the car go forwards or backwards. That said the overall idea is fantastic, it just feels poorly executed. If the voice control worked properly at least 99% of the time the experience would be better.
DISCLAIMER:
I received this product for free in return for my honest and unbiased review. This has had no effect on my overall opinion of the product.
