BB-8 awakens: Is this new droid the most awesome Star Wars toy ever?

A nimble new remote-control toy from the upcoming Star Wars movie leaves old-school action figures in the dust.

NOT SUCH A LONG time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Star Wars toys were lifeless hunks of plastic. That changed this week with the launch of a new toy droid named BB-8, a real-life robot that can roll around your house, like the mechanical sidekick every Star Wars fan has dreamed of owning.

If you haven’t heard of BB-8, you will soon. He’s the cutest character to be spotted yet in trailers for the Star Wars movie “The Force Awakens,” out in December, and the spiritual successor to R2-D2. (The two droids share a similar head.) In the film’s first teaser, you can see him beeping with his head floating above his soccer-ball body, which somehow spins furiously underneath.

The toy version of BB-8 is smaller, roughly the size of a baseball (which scales perfectly with 12-inch Star Wars action figures). It was created by the robot-toy startup Sphero, makers of a programmable remote-control ball of the same name. Like the Sphero, BB-8 is steerable via a smartphone app (available for Android and iOS) and uses gyroscopes and motors to propel itself forward, backward and side-to-side at up to 5 miles per hour.

Sphero’s BB-8 was born from good old Hollywood kismet. Last year, Disney CEO Bob Iger showed a photo of the then-top-secret BB-8 character to executives at Sphero, which was part of a Disney-sponsored accelerator program. Would it be possible to make a version of the existing Sphero with a head that stayed on top as it rolled? he asked.

As it turns out, yes. I asked Sphero’s marketing senior vice president Kelly Nyland how the company managed to get the head to stay upright. “The Force,” she told me with a straight face.

Well, the head does attach with a force...magnetism. If a malicious sibling pulls BB-8’s head off (or if it comes off accidentally after you slam BB-8 into a wall), fear not. It’ll pop right back on.

In addition to driving BB-8 around like a remote-control car, you can also activate preset routines. Send him off to patrol his surroundings on autopilot. (He can’t see, so don’t put him near the stairs. If he runs into furniture, he’ll just stop and roll a different way.)

Activate “Joy module” to make him do a little dance. You can even command him using your smartphone’s microphone. Yell, “It’s a trap!” and he’ll careen off. He understands “Look around,” “Wake up,” and other commands, too. (Just say “Hey BB-8” first.) BB-8’s capabilities will increase over time, via software updates, according to Sphero.

But it’s all about that little head. BB-8 has so much personality as he bobs, twists and at times struggles to keep upright as a drunkard might, it’s hard not to fall in love. I like to just have him sitting nearby, so he can shuffle and gyrate about like my very own droid companion. Kids these days, right? $150 (approximately R2000), sphero.com/starwars

This article was originally published on 03-09-2015 on The Wall Street Journal

More Africa news from The Wall Street Journal

More news from The Wall Street Journal

Premium access to WSJ.com: $1 a week for 12 weeks