cars with REV Air. REV Air will come with an AI car and a drone, so that players can play as either vehicle. With this new technology, the quadcopter recognizes where the car is located and flies above it. Players can take control to try to outmaneuver the quadcopter (or vice versa) and shoot at it with laser blasters to disable it. Thanks to beacon-sense technology, the quadcopter can not only chase the car around and follow it while kids are driving, but it also knows how to fly without crashing into things. “And the question now is: ‘I can fly—now what?’ And that’s what we’re answering,” says Sufer. “We’re also opening it up to a wider audience because people who can’t fly can now say, ‘I can fly. And guess what? I can play a game.’” But the technology doesn’t just make it easier to fly. WowWee believes that the gaming aspects add a whole new level to the flying R/C play pattern. “We think it’s not just an enabler, it’s giving it its own depth,” adds Sufer. “It’s giving it the concept of a flying thing, with more interactivity, more play, and more depth.” Spin Master will also introduce the Air Hogs Connect: Mission Drone this year, which will use an included mat to give players what is best described as—in the words of Forkan—the Star Trek Holodeck. The Mission Drone uses augmented reality to build a video game world out of the room in which players are standing. Users can walk around the room as they play because if there is furniture there, they can still see it, but there is also a 3-D video game building in front of it. “This is the first time where it’s completely immersive and reactive and there’s no delay and you just play the game and you fly this drone in this 3-D space,” says Forkan. DESIGN MATTERS Odyssey Toys’ Pocket Drone is award-winning for its innovation in design. This small drone fits inside of a pocket, but also shoots video in 720 HD. It’s designed to be completely portable, so that it fits into the very on-the-go way of life today’s consumers lead. “‘On-the-go’ is what society is about nowadays,” says Sal Irigoyen, president, Odyssey Toys. “It’s people going on vacation, it’s instant communication, people going places. How cool is it that you can go camping and bring Odyssey’s Pocket Drone with you and in that forest, pull out your Pocket Drone,
and just film the beauty that nature has to offer without it being a cumbersome device that you have to carry around with you?” And just because it’s small, that doesn’t mean that drone-lovers will sarcrifice the height. The Pocket Drone can fly up to 150 feet. Skyrocket also added new features— including one-button touch for auto-pilot— to the drones in its 2016 product line. The newly designed controller will allow for the R/Cs to be easier to fly right out of the box. “This will allow you to press a button and it will auto launch and it’ll hover at a height and will lock in at that height and just stay right there in position,” says Burns. “It will allow you to move the drone up and down in pre-set 6-inch increments, just by pushing the button.” But the one-button flight mode won’t deter more experienced fliers from Skyrocket’s line. Users are also able to use the normal two-stick analog control when they graduate from novice flying and feel more comfortable with their drone. Irigoyen predicts that the future of the category involves bringing those high-tech features from the higher-priced drones in the greater than $1,000 category down to the toy category (under $200). Features such as more detailed GPS and more advanced auto-pilot features will trickle their way down to a more affordable price point. One thing is for certain: When you play the game of drones, you win and you fly. »
Odyssey Toys’ Pocket Drone
REV Air, from WowWee
Skyrocket Toys’ Hover Racer
Ali Mierzejewski is a senior editor at Adventure Publishing Group, contributing to leading trade magazines The Toy Book and The Licensing Book. She is the co-director of digital and social media content for The Toy Insider.
TOYBOOK.COM | March/april 2016 | THE TOY BOOK 27