There’s no such thing as a real Transformer, or is there? A new generation of robotic toys harks back to the past, provided you have plenty of cash to splash.
Toys aren’t quite what they used to be in the 80s and 90s, but if you grew up during those years and wished the advertisements matched the descriptions, you may be in luck, some 30 to 40-odd years later.
Depending on if you’re still a kid at heart, you probably can now afford to buy your own toys, as opposed to leaning on your parents in the aisle of the shops, complaining loudly, only to have them say “no way”, until you were good at home and they eventually surprised you. As an adult, you can bypass all of that with your own money, and depending on how much disposable income you have to spend, the latest take in toys could be a nice throwback to what you wanted toys to be like back then.
Thanks to a combination of robotics and app control, robot toy maker Robosen has created something that feels more like it should have existed in the 80s, but is a thing now: an actual Transformer that transforms.
It’s not the first time Robosen has shown what it can do, but the latest is a classic Volkswagen Beetle that transforms into Bumblebee from the classic show Transformers, compared to the sleek version in the Michael Bay flick.
The hardware includes a complex robotic servo system with 31 servo motors, 67 chips, and a motion sensor to allow the hardware to go from one shape — a car — to a full robot. It has over 230 voice clips and can be commanded with voice control, as well.
And much like Sphero’s robots, it can also be programmed, either using simple app control, block based efforts, and even PC programming. You can even make it dance, making it work with Robosen’s other robot Transformers, which includes Megatron and Optimus Prime.
It’s pretty much the embodiment of what you always imagined toy would be like, but didn’t have the technology to do.
Of course, unlike the toys of your youth, the G1 Flagship Bumblebee comes with a severe cost, the likes of which your parents would never, ever, ever have accommodated. Priced at $2499 in Australia, the G1 Bumblebee is about the most expensive toy around, and pretty much focused on parents with disposable incomes.
It’s on the way to Australia, set for arrival in September 2025, with pre-orders in place until the end of April, though its distributor Amber Technology also notes the $2499 price is an early bird price, and could eventually rise.
