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» Pam and Jiro (PamJB1@aol.com)
for the first time and although there is a big
difference between him and my Aibo, he is very good for his price range. The motors are
loud, a little more than a Furby - to me at least. His three repertoires are very
impressive and includes everything from headstands to pushups and some very unexpected
tricks. I spent 20 minutes trying to initiate his vocal commands an absolutely silent room
and just gave up. Maybe mine is a bit like my real dogs and somewhat stubborn or just has
selective hearing. The clap commands are fairly good, though he seems to sometimes not
hear exactly what you've clapped by his repeat barks. I think the pause inbetween takes
some time on the owner's part to get just right. When left alone for a short while he does
some interesting behaviors, and does walk around a bit. I find in certain modes he
responds exceptionally well to touch. He's nicely interactive with definite programmed
responses and added surprises. He doesn't really seem to develope a unique personality out
of different growing stages from puppy to adult with varied end results like Aibo. He
deliberately falls over on his own also and goes to sleep (sound effects of snoring, then
whining) and wakes himself up then gets up. And his movements are very quick. He is very
flexible and seems to have greater ranges of motion than Aibo. Some of the positions he
gets in are incredible. I do like his barking and sound effects which mainly occur as
growling, sleeping and such, though he does make some very appropriate noises when he
lifts his leg. This stunt alone is very funny to watch. The warm up check seems to take
awhile and you're never quite sure if it's over, at least the first time he wakens. The
battery pack was a little awkward to load. And YES, if you push him over he gets up on his
own. He does it by pushing out two legs on one side and then pushing himself over and up
and his eyes glow red and he has a nasty coughing sound afterwords. Now he's turning
around on his butt using his front feet. Yes, there are a number of interest and
fascinating reaction and responses. I'm still discovering them. I hope I'll be doing this
for awhile to come. And I correct myself, left alone he does keep himself occupied. Now to
see what type of material and surface he will react to and how, as mentioned in Brian's
last chat. The edge detector mode seems to be something that the owner has to activate. I
may be wrong in this but after reading the manual it seems that way. Could someone else
out there correct me or possibly verify this? And his battery lasts a long time. As he
does more, I'll let you know. But overall for the money and then some, there's not a robot
dog out there to even come close to him. And by the way, the manual says if when
recharging the battery gets warm or hot to disconnect. This seems to be simply the way it
recharges, and I wouldn't worry about it. Enjoy!!
» Cole (cole339900@yahoo.com)
I finally got mine he is blue and his name is Gama. He is a dream come true.
» Awesome (yaunggu@earthlink.com)
I-Cybie's voice training is not hard at all. Its clap commands are very good (like
cyberdave said). The tricks are very neat also. The walking is great. For voice training,
you must stick to the manual because it is helpful. I got done with voice training in less
than 2 minutes! It's so easy! Well, as long as the room is quiet. You have to teach each
command twice, no matter what. The remote works well. i- Cybie is every thing we expected.
» Marty (mjboyd@aol.com)
Plugged the freshly charged battery in, eye lights went on, and that's when I realized
the poorly translated manual is very difficult to follow along with. Was trying to follow
along in the manual while the robot was moving around. Somehow, something I did already
forced me to do a reset by pushing a recessed button. Tried training the voice commands,
but so far no luck in getting it to respond (maybe mostly because of the confusing
manual). And then after 30 minutes of basic confusion, it's battery went dead. 30 minutes
only? My impressions? Well, you know how you see a Sony dog and it seems like a dog? Well
so far in my brief 30 minutes I never thought this was more than plastic and very loud
gears. It's a very cool gadget and you can see $200 bucks worth of gadgety stuff there,
but what you can do with it remains to be seen. Hopefully I'll know more after 6 hours
recharge and I get another 30 minutes with it. Meanwhile it sits on it's side with the
door open and the battery out plugged into the socket. More later.
» The First (cyberdave888@yahoo.com)
I just finish two runs with the I-Cybie and it is pretty good. Training the vocal
section was tricky. The room have to be quiet. If it is not when you finish I-cybie will
not understand. I trained the voice command at least 5 times. I'm still training it but
the battery die again. I got about 1 hour run time before it died. The clap commands (in
voice/trick mode) are good but you have to pace the claps or he will do a differnt trick.
The dog will come to the direction of the clap which was very cool (normal mode). I try to
clap from behind to see if he would turn around and walk to me but he did not. I thought
he did once but did not do it again. I just have to wait to you guys get yours to find out
if this is possible. I uploaded a little more pictures in the photo section. I will have
video for you guys tomorrow.
»FStop27 (FStop27@aol.com)
I just got a blue I-CYBIE today from an ebay seller (it seems to
be the only way to get one right now) and am very pleased. Fortunately, after having
the battery charged for 5 hours I noticed it was getting very warm so I called Customer
Service at Tiger Electronics. The representative told me to stop charging it
immediately because their most recent research showed that it only needed a 4 or 5 hour
initial charge, not the 10 hour charge that the manual suggests. It even seemed to
last longer on that charge, according to him. Well after the 5 hour charge my
I-CYBIE was working for almost 2 hours! I've read that it only lasts from 15 minutes
to 45 minutes for some other users. It seems that charging the battery for too long
probably actually ends up burning it out. A 4 hour recharge should be sufficient,
again according to Tiger Electronics customer service. It would be a good idea to
call the 800 number found in the start up manual and check this out for yourselves.
Now, about the dog itself. For an affordable price tag of
$200, this robot dog is pretty impressive overall. It is very flexible and fairly
fluid in movement. The motors are a bit noisy, but this thing does some pretty cute
tricks like standing on its head, "peeing", and assuming a guard dog position.
Unfortunately, you have to press a button on its head or on the remote for it to be in
voice recognition mode, which doesn't make any sense to me-it should always be able to
respond to a clap and/or voice command. And wouldn't it make sense to have a remote
with command keys like "beg", "handstand", and "pee" on it
instead of a bunch of numbers that only make sense with the manual in hand?
I am curious to see what other software Tiger comes up with that
will surely make it a more sophisticated robot dog with a more unique personality. I
have seen AIBO at a demonstration at a NYC Sony store, and I remember thinking "I'd
pay about $500 for this MAYBE, but certainly not $2,000. Well, for $200 you can get
yourself a robot dog that truly rivals (and even looks a lot cuter) than AIBO.
> Adrian
I just got my i-Cybie on Christmas
and I already love it. Mine is gold, so I named him Gold. I am probably going to
change his name later. He is happy already and does tricks alot of times without me
telling him to, and that's because he likes me alot. I trained him to listen to my voice
in about 3 minutes. He is more than I expected! All of my family members think he and his
actions are "so cute" and "adorable". The best part is that I don't
have to feed him and clean up after him. I can't wait for the accessories for i-Cybie to
come out!!!!!!!!!
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