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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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littleBits to little bricks?

ntewinkel

I recently picked up a littleBricks Droid Inventor Kit from a local person who was frustrated with it and the company.

 

I can see now why she was frustrated with them.

 

It seems that littleBits was acquired by Sphero, and it looks like they are actively whittling away the older products, or maybe all littleBits products?

 

These kits require an app to drive them, and unfortunately the app for this particular Droid kit is no longer available on either app store. So I asked support to see if and where I could find the app.

 

This was their response:

Thank you for reaching out about your Droid Inventor Kit.

 

Sphero no longer supports or provides troubleshooting for the following products:

littleBits Droid Inventor Kit

littleBits Avenger Hero Kit

 

Only products purchased directly from Sphero or an authorized retailer are eligible for our manufacturer's warranty. Sphero and all authorized retailers stopped selling these products in 2019 so any purchases made within the last year are not covered under the one-year warranty.

 

I apologize that I am unable to offer you any assistance for your kit today.

 

Dang. One year out of warranty and they brick the kit. Without the app you can't do anything with it.

I noticed these products aren't cheap either.

 

I'm hoping it's just for these licensed kits due to licensing costs or contracts, because it would be sad to see the littleBits line disappear completely - they seem like a really great STEM teaching tool.

 

As for me, I'll try to get a direct BlueTooth connection to the controller to see if I can do anything with it, and otherwise I'll just have to fully customize this little droid image

I've lost a fair bit of trust in Sphero and littleBits though, if longer term support is that limited. Sadly, that's not too uncommon these days with cloud and app support - especially when companies go under or get acquired.

 

Cheers,

-Nico

 

Edit: Support says the apps were removed because they no longer have the rights. So "Boo Disney!" for killing the existing products, and yay that it's not due to littleBits in general going down.

  • I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add 2 points. 

    1) The are still selling these kits, so "Boo Sphero" too. I saw one of these things still going for $100 on Walmart.com. $100 for a toy that won't work out of the box.

    2) Even if these were a case of "Boo Disney", Sphero also killed the littlebits cloud kit. A cool little piece of tech to connect littlebits to IFTTT as a way to develop IoT devices. Sphero bought the tech and killed it. No matter how I look at it, I still arrive at "Boo Sphero".

  • in reply to neilk

    I don't think it's planned. But it is symptomatic.

    If the industry asks why people are reluctant to buy goods that rely on an online service, it's self-inflicted.

  • That's really sad!

     

    Is it yet another example of planned or accidental obsolescence??

     

    Neil

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Right, it's very sad. Support says they no longer have the rights to it, so it sounds like Disney is the problem.

    So that completely undermines Disney's marketing with the "Disney Accelerator program" - set them up only to pull the rug out later, that's not going to encourage anyone.

     

    On the other hand, littleBits could re-release the app in a generic way without all the licensed content, so that the hardware can still be controlled.

    And yes, for a company claiming to be open-source, they only seem to release schematics for the bits... which include ATTiny in them so that's useless without knowing what code is run on those chips.

    From their support rep in one of their discussions: "There is not an open programming library available for non-app controls."

     

    littleBits was bought out by Sphero, so it's possible they never quite got to profitability. And I wonder if that also means Ayah is no longer part of that project.

     

    For me, I don't think it's worth the chase. I received it for free, but I do feel bad for all those who purchased it and got burned, like the person I got this kit from.

     

    If I can't find a way to control it via BlueTooth I'll just use some other controller for it.

    I definitely won't be buying any littleBits replacement parts for it though image

     

    -Nico