The object of the Anki game is to eliminate your opponents by virtually shooting at them while you’re racing around the track. Their names might as well be picked off signs at a science fair: Boson, Kourai, Rho (these are the three I tested) and Katal. The cars look like brightly-colored little Batmobiles, complete with glowing lights. It’s in this instant, before the games have begun, that you get a sense of how robotics and artificial intelligence works within these tiny toys. You plop the cars on the mat, give them a nudge and they take off, fighting for position on the loop. This is how the cars wirelessly connect to the phone, or iPad.įirst-time users can go through a tutorial in the app, and normally I’d say skip it but this part is actually sort of cool. Then, you activate Bluetooth on your iPhone. Here’s how the set-up works: You first download the Anki Drive app from the iTunes App Store. So you’ll need to keep recharging them, which breaks up game play. And, while Anki cars charge in about eight minutes, their battery also drains pretty quickly. (Good thing that it’s fun for adults, too.)Īlso, it’s iOS-only, which is bad news for Android users. But I still think that’s a really hefty price for a kid’s toy - plus, you’ll need that iOS device or two. When you consider that Anki is bringing robotics and artificial intelligence to such a consumer-friendly level, $199 might not seem like a lot. A fifth, special-edition car is being developed. The starter kit, which includes the racing mat, two toy cars, their charging pods and a tire cleaner, costs $199. The whole toy set feels really well made, and it works as promised. This past week, I played with Anki a handful of times, mostly at night, when I wanted to decompress from the day. ![]() The cars read this data through a tiny camera and then send the information back to your iPhone via Bluetooth. They all work on a special racing track, a flat black mat, that has a bunch of positioning data baked into it.
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