Home Safety Movable Camera Robot

My buddy first purchased this robot and showed it to me. I looked it up on amazon and was concerned about the mixed reviews, with Amazon's return policy I figured I'd give this thing a try and if it sucked I would just return it. Set up wasn't that bad, pretty easy actually. I have been messing around with this robot for a few days now and it has worked out perfectly for me with no issues. If you have bad cell service in places it will lag a little. I wish you could change the tilt sensitivity as it is a little snappy. I say give this a try and if you don't like it just return it. My cats are so fascinated with it I often find it toppled over when I get home. It would be cool if they had a flying drone version of this robot.

Despite the mixed reviews and low star rating, the concept of Riley was too intriguing for me, so I decided to give it a try. Well… the unit was DOA (never made it to pairing stage) and after fruitless customer support attempts I gave up and shipping it back.Read below for details and proceed with caution if you decide to buy one. Regards1) Unit was DOA - it never made it to the initial wifi-pairing stage. you’re supposed to press “power-on” & “reset” for 3 seconds until you hear a “I am ready” from Riley. Except my unit’s green power light turned red and kept blinking, no matter the combinations. Power on/off, reset, both, 1sec or 10s.. no luck. And trust me, I tried everything.2) Tech support is MIA (missing in action)a) Varram’s web site lists one customers issue with a red-blinking LED (I assume battery/ power or initial failure? Not sure, they don’t say what it could mean) but only ask to ensure Riley is fully charged (mine was!) and then to contact customer supportb) They listed a 800-number on the weekend, which was disconnected. Today it’s changed to a 714-number, someone updated the website(!), however which rolls to a VM after three rings to leave a message for “…” (no name was recorded). Seriously?3) Amazon tech support unfortunately was MIA also. “Due to higher call volume…we are sorry” and disconnected me. On the weekend and during weekday on several attempts.At this point, I’m giving up. Move on folks, there’s nothing to see here...

I haven't found any issues with the Appbot Riley functionality, except that even with the self-docking technology, my Riley seemed to struggle to get back on the charger while I was at a remote location.My larger issue was that when I tried accessing my Riley from abroad (I had already set it up in my home), the app was "blacked out" on my iPhone and I wasn't able to open it. I checked for updates and restarted my phone and neither of those helped. My only option would have been to uninstall the app and reinstall it, but then I wouldn't be able to reconnect the device until I was back at home, which I wouldn't be for a couple weeks, so it was rendered useless during that time.

Mine arrived with the box seal broken so I assume it was returned. Not sure which version I received. I decided to try it out anyway.The setup was pretty easy and on my iPad without cellular it works fine. When I tried to install it on an iPad with cellular as a second user (see YouTube video about installing for added users) it would not recognize the bot no matter what I tiried.I looked for a solution to no avail but then I saw a comment on the app page about a user who had to disable Cellular Data in iPad/iPhone setup to make the connection, then once connected, to turn the Cellular Data back on. If you have trouble getting it to connect make sure to turn off Cellular Data during the setup.The bot is working fine and with WiFi turned off it works fine through the cloud too. I tested the upright feature when flipped over and it works great unless you are up against a wall. It will back a bit and then jerk forward righting itself which is pretty darn cool. I don't think it can right itself if on it's side. The video quality is fairly good. Two way sound is fair quality. The bot will easily handle transitions from carpet to floor and over short transitions such as a tile border. The auto dock feature is cool and works great as long as you navigate close to the base station.I would give it 5 stars but the connection issue with Cellular Data almost stumped me when connecting it as a second user. Folks unfamiliar with technology may have trouble getting it to connect. I think it would have a far higher rating except for a couple of hangups which frustrate the less technically inclined users.I stationed ours in the corner behind a lamp base so our Roomba won't knock it over. Once I got it connected I can see it will be a great device to watch over our house while we are away. Time will tell and I may post an update later.

Texting in to get used to but this thing is fun. When I'm at work and I want to check on my animals or just the house this thing will drive around your house and let you see what's going on in your living room or whatever in your house. It does not climb stairs so if you have upstairs you may want to buy an extra one. But other than that this thing is fun to drive easy to work and my cats love it