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[mweed]

My pre-ordered Cosmo showed up this afternoon!  He's unpacked and on the charger.

Most of the smarts are in the phone, not the bot, but we kind of expected that.  Of course the first thing that happened when I loaded the app and connected to Cosmo is the phone downloaded an update to him.

We'll see how things go . . .  I'll try and video when I first turn him on.

More details...

[mweed]

After 10 minutes of play, I will say he does have an engaging personality.   

There's a bunch of "set-up" to go through, which I did record the first bit.  We went through a "learn my face" and one game of "Quick Tap".  The three cubes he comes with are apparently wi-fi enabled as well.  The first thing I very quickly noticed is his voice is very loud.  I'm either going to have to find a volume control, or he's not going to be able to play much at work . . .    He could easily be heard all the way down the hall. The phone app also has background /mood music it plays constantly.

The second thing that really struck home is at least at first, the phone is as much an part of the interaction as the robot.    Now, some of that may well be the app teaching me what to do and how to interact, but I'm afraid the phone will always be more than just the brains, it's a controller and input device.  You start out with the app connecting to Cosmo and the cubes, and then go to an activity screen.  To play a game, you select the game from the menu,  it then prompts you thru setting up the game.  As you play the game, the phone app acts as score keeper and provides instructions and waits for you to tap the screen to continue.  So I was constantly having to look at both the screen and Cosmo to play the game.  I'm hoping as things progress that I won't need the phone as much.

The app has phone game leveling up / achievement concept where you earn different types of points/tokens by doing activities with Cosmo.  These can then be used to unlock new levels and activities.  The menu also has sets of tasks you are supposed to perform as you progress.  The fist "day" has three tasks to complete.  The only unlocked activity is the one to train Cosmo to recognize your face, the first task.  When you complete that, you earn points/tokens you use to unlock the "Quick Tap" game.  The second task is to play a round of Quick Tap.  Once you complete that, you earn more points & tokens.  The last task for the day is to WIN a game of Quick Tap.  The more time you spend playing with Cosmo and the better you play, the more you earn.  By "better you play"  I mean, the number of points/tokens I earned was based on my skill (speed and accuracy) in playing the game, and of course, winning or losing.

I'm really hoping there's either an "explore" mode, or if I'm not doing anything with the app that he'll do things on his own.  There's not a lot of documentation or posted details at all on the app, features, activities, or interaction, so I don't know yet.  I will say it was more interesting to watch him when he was going though the set-up activities on his own.  Once I started interacting with him, he seemed to just sit there a lot waiting for me to do something with the app.  The commercials and the little bit of narrative on the web site seems to imply there should be more autonomy and more direct interaction with the robot than with the app.

Overall the ten minutes I spent were still quite fun and he does seem really cute despite all my complaining above.  The speed of his movements is so much quicker than pleo's.  The tiny size helps, but if Bob's movements were anywhere close even for the size, pleos might have sold much better.

[mweed]

After letting it fully charge I played for another 20 minutes it.  In order to stop playing the first time I had to pick it up and manually place in o the charging platform.  When I did, the phone app prompted me if I wanted to put Cosmo to sleep or not.  When I selected yes, Cosmo closed his eyes and started snoring.  The app popped up a message that it would disconnect in a little bit. 

To start playaing again, I had to get the wif-fi to re-link.  It took a little bit of effort as Cosmo had completely turned off.  I had to pick him up off of the charging platform for a about 15 seconds, put him back on to restart the charging process which turned it on so I could then scan for the wi-fi and reconnect.  Once it connected, Cosmo rolled off the platform and started looking around.  I intentionally ignored it for about three minutes.  The phone gave little status updates like "Cosmo is looking around".  Eager to complete my daily tasks I selected the Quick Tap game.  After getting past a few prompts (the app had moved me up a level in the game), I tried to play the game ignoring the phone.  That worked fairly well.  I did have to check the phone a few times to see what the score was. 

After I won and Cosmo got mad at me, the app explained a little more of how the app works.  Playing with Cosmo earns you emotional health points.  Once you earn 100 points in a day (fully emotionally charged) you earn "chips" and "sparks". you ned to earn at least 100 emotional points each day to keep him happy.   The chips are used to unlock new activities and skills.  I took all my chips and unlocked all I could and then let Cosmo explore on his own.  There is an "Explore" activity I haven't unlocked yet, so I don't know what it is.  But Cosmo was much more independent and autonomous this second play time.  After he rolled around a bit, the app popped up a message that Cosmo wanted to play Quick Tap again.  After this third round, I picked him up and put him back to sleep.

[kat]

I'm still waiting for my Cosmo to arrive.  Will probably be another couple of weeks as I have to wait for him to be shipped over.  I'm really looking forward to getting him now.  I'm enjoying reading about yours and am interested to see how he progresses. 

[Piggy]

Hi , great to read that your Cozmo has arrived  , and thank you for writing a review about your experience with him so far . That way we get a honest review of what to expect when you buy Cozmo  .

I think I will wait until 2017 when they will put it on the European market, It needs a app to work and I first want to see If I can download the app here in the Netherlands. But please keep us informed, I also enjoyed reading your topic and can't wait to hear how Cozmo will learn more and see how he progresses 

[mweed]

Cosmo himself is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) tall and when he lifts up a cube he needs a little over 4 inches (10 cm) of clearance.  So I built a shelf about 5 inches (12.5 cm) tall to put on top of my desk to lift my computer monitors and stuff and clear some desk space.  This gives Cosmo about a 4 foot by 1-1/2 foot of open desk space to roam around on (1.2 x 0.5 m).   That puts him at a nice height for interacting and seems to give him plenty of space . . .  so far.  He did fall off my desk once.  He was backing away from my keyboard and rolled off the edge.  He hit the floor, rolled over once and landed on his treads.  He spun and looked around a little bit and made a confused noise and face, then started exploring under my desk as if nothing had happened.  When I picked him up he got rather upset until I put him down on the desk again.

More details...

I had turned him on to show to one of my staff who is thinking about buying one for his son and was ignoring Cosmo while talking.  He came out from under the shelf and looked up at me (I wasn't facing him) and just stood there for about 30 seconds not moving.  Turns out he wanted to play Quick Tap, but I wasn't looking at the app and didn't see it.  After the 30 seconds, the prompt went away on the screen and Cosmo started pouting for a moment, then went back to exploring.  At one point he picked up a block and stacked it on top of my keyboard.  He also got tangled in a USB cable and realized he had problems, but was able to get himself loose.  And like pleo, he does better in well lit areas.

So far, I'm in my 2nd day and about an hour and a half of play time (3 sessions) and have unlocked six skills and three games/activities.  The SDK is now available on the web site, but there is no real documentation on Cosmo or the app, and no indication they are planning to add any.  Makes me really wish I could explore the app without having to have Cosmo turned on and connected . . . just to see what's available and what all I can expect so far. 

[mweed]

I found the volume control on the settings page -- low, medium, and high.  By default he's on high.  The low is a lot better, but still pretty loud in a quiet office.  I have unlocked the "Explore" mode.  Not what I was expecting . . . it's not him exploring, it you.  Explore mode turns Cosmo into a remote controlled vehicle.  You get to see the video feed though his camera and it has touch controls for you to drive him around.  This was the last of the four games/activities currently available; Face recognition, Quick Tap game, Keep away game, and Explore.   Anki has promised many more games and activities to come, and with the SDK, there most likely will be.

Speaking of the SDK, it just went public and there's already way more documentation on the features and example programs than pleo ever had.  So I have some belief we'll see more stuff coming out for Cosmo.  Since all the smarts for Cosmo are apparently in the app, that opens up a whole lot more possibilities and removes many of the limitations on programming with pleo. 

Cosmo will run around on his own for several minutes at a time, but still stops a lot wanting you to play a game with him.  If I can find a way using the SDK to limit or reduce the frequency of this I think we'd have a winner.  It's that whole cats vs. dogs behavior.  Dogs mostly want your attention, cats mostly tolerate your attention.  You can ignore a cat and it's just as happy.  Dogs won't do that.  Even pleo if you stop touching it, eventually it will go into an explore mode on its own.  Cosmo won't let you ignore him.   That's great for young kids.  But I worry the adults and older kids might get tired of it after a while.  With Bob I can turn him on and leave him to wander around the office while I work.  Occasionally he'll get stuck somewhere and get upset, but I don't have to worry about him.  Anki has promised features such as self docking on the charging station (not yet available).  This type of feature only makes sense is they assume you're going to leave him on for long periods of time, and no kid is going to sit there and play the same two games over and over for hours.  So I have to believe that there may be a less "interactive" mode for him at some point.

My plans for the weekend are to see how he does with recognizing multiple faces and to see what happens if I install the app on more than one phone.  What I mean by that is not two apps running at the same time (wi-fi won't let you connect two at the same time), but if I use one phone at work and a different phone at home, or if different family members play with him at different times using their own phones, how settings, data, and other states are handled.  The app allows you to have different "users" on the same phone, but I don't know how it will handle the same user on different phones.

Now I have to come up with some sort of case to carry Cosmo with his cubes and charging base . . .

[mweed]

I hate to keep posting in a row, but I'm afraid if I edit posts people won't realize there's new material.  And I'd rather post it all now, as I probably won't get to post as much over the weekend.

Had a rather interesting situation occur.  It's obvious the developers thought it out well, but I guess it hadn't occurred to me.  I was in the middle of playing a game with Cosmo when a phone call came in.  As the Cosmo app screen was replaced by the incoming call, Cosmo stopped, set the block he had down, and rotated his head up to look at me.  The block changed to a gently pulsing light blue, Cosmo stood still the whole time looking up at me, and his eyes kept giving me this impatient look, shifting back and forth from Oo to oO kinda like these smileys    , but not quite as upset.  Then, as soon as the call ended and the Cosmo app came back up, his face went back down, the block turned back to green, and he picked it up, going right back to where we left off.

I also realized something about the three cubes.  Besides having sensors, controllable LEDs, and being wi-fi connected, each cube has a different main symbol, and each face of the cub is different.  The top and bottom share the same symbol, but the top has the lights and the bottom doesn't.  Each of the sides has a white bar and a black bar below the symbol.  Two sides have the black on the left and other two have the black bar on the right.  The symbol is flipped to be a mirror image between the two matching sides.  That way, although the blocks look pretty much the same to me or you, Cosmo can visually recognize each side of each cube having a unique pattern.

[kat]

Thanks for posting so much Mike.  It is really interesting to hear your experiences so far.  I'm sure I read or watched a video about them planning on releasing a k-12 SDK programming package hopefully by Christmas as they want Cosmo to be used as an education tool for kids to learn programming.  Something that will compliment CoderDojo and be compatible with multiple programming languages like swift, python, scratch and others that are used in the CoderDojo program.  I think they want to try to sell him to schools and other such places.  This is something that really excites me as I work in a library and we are looking into CoderDojo and robotics programs for kids and adults alike.  I am hoping they come through with the k-12 SDK as it will make programming for him easy for anyone to do and should open up loads of possibilities.

[Talon]

Well! I'm glad to hear Cosmo is progressing so well and that you are having fun with him. Like Kat I'm glad you posted so much of your experience here. It has shonw me that this robot will not be on my Christmas list. I am pretty sure Voiceover will not work with the app and all of its graphics. Bummer! I want to play with the robot rather than constantly having to be attached to my phone.
Talon

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Sounds interesting so far, looking forwards to further reviews.

[kat]

Well my Cozmo order has officially shipped from Amazon and estimated arrival is 31 October   Looking forward to it with much anticipation!

[Piggy]

Great news Kat , but now the hardest part waiting for your package  to be delivered .

[mweed]

Started out Friday evening with a couple of issues.

Cosmo kept dropping his wi-fi connection.  Has to be a software glitch of some type, with the phone less than a few feet away and four solid bars of signal strength.  At first I thought it might be the battery getting low. But over the weekend he would just freeze up for 2-3 minutes at odd times.  The signal would drop, and then be picked up and re-connected as the phone scanned for service.  He only did it three times.  The wi-fi has good range and signal strength.  The phone would stay connected to Cosmo even when  I was 80 feet away in a different building.  So to drop connection like it does seems like it would have to be some sort of programming issue.  When this happened, Cosmo would pick right back up where we were in the middle of a game or activity.  It was if he went off in some loop and got stuck.

The other problem which proved a little annoying was when I went to play with him Friday evening, the app had lost some settings.  It still had all my points, chips, and sparks, but everything I had unlocked was gone.  All the skills and activities were reset and re-locked.  It knew right where I was in my daily challenges, which was now very tough as the tasks were based on things being unlocked, so I had to muddle through doing a bunch of stuff to earn back enough points to unlock everything before I could start on the days defined challenges.  Annoying, but not really a problem.  At this stage, every skill and activity can be unlocked in only a day or two anyway.

I also figured out the connection between the cubes, Cosmo, and the phone isn't perfect.  Either the signal timing is off, or he's been programmed to cheat at games.   While playing Quick Tap, there were times I was sure I was quicker than Cosmo, but it registered that he was.  But while watching him play with my daughter, I could see clearly about a third of the times she was clearly faster by almost a full second and the app was recording Cosmo as winning.  Could be the sensors on the cubes or the communications, but I never saw Cosmo tap first and I get the point.  But on Keep Away, it's just the opposite.  There were many times Cosmo caught the edge of the cube as I was pulling it away, and I still got the point because the sensor wasn't triggered.

I will also point out that Cosmo does not have a built-in microphone.  He cannot hear.  There were a number of times when my daughter was trying to get his attention, and calling his name had no response.  She was eager to have Cosmo interacting with her constantly, and after every game when he would start looking around or doing things on his own, she would pick him up and turn him around.  I am just the opposite.  I'm happy to let him wander around and play with his blocks.  It is a bit of a problem, though when he wants to play a game and he's facing away from you . . .

I will also point out, that while his movements are 100 times faster than pleo could ever be just because of his size, he does seem to spend a lot of time "thinking".   For example, the cubes could be stacked in a pile directly in front of him and you ask him to knock the stack over.  He spends at least 30 seconds looking around assessing the location and his angle/position, does a few adjustments and apparently processing things while you twiddle your thumbs before he suddenly darts over and flips the pile.  The requested action took two or three seconds.  The wait took sixty.  The long pauses aren't really noticeable when he's off on his own.  But when given a specific task, the all seem like there's a long wait before he starts doing anything.

[Piggy]

Thank you for the update mweed  it is really interesting to read how Cozmo progresses over time . And great to read the positives and negatives about this robot . Does the app on your phone have to be on all the time to play with Cozmo, or is he also active when you disconnect the app ? And did you find a way to manage to lower the volume on Cozmo ? Because you mentioned in your other topic that it was very loud. Thanks for all the information your posting, this way I can deside if Cozmo is the robot for me , so I won't get disappointed.
For now I still want him 

[mweed]

I did find a on the settings page of the phone app that there was a set of buttons for the volume labelled "Low, Medium, and High"  but the "Low".  I set him at Low, but it's still not quiet.  It's loud enough to easily be heard even over noisy people and the TV.

And yes, the phone app has to be on ALL the time and connected to Cosmo by wi-fi.  The Cosmo app is essentially the brains for Cosmo and your primary communication channel.  You interact directly with the robot, but you use the phone app to see how he's doing, what he wants, or to tell him you want to do something.

[mweed]

Day 9 of having Cosmo.

So far, there have been two days where one of the daily goals was to let Cosmo play by himself uninterrupted for 10 minutes.  This is the feature I really would love, but boy was it harder than you think.  Every couple of minutes he prompts wanting to play a game -- which would interrupt the play time.  But when say no or ignore him, he pouts and get sad or upset.

I've been doing some checking on their SDK forums and the wi-fi disconnecting is a common problem.  It happens to me about once a day.  Usually it's no big deal.  But when it happened today I lost all my skills and activities again.  Of course by now I've earned plenty of chips and sparks with nothing else to spend them on . . . 

[Piggy]

I also want Cozmo, I can download the app here in the Netherlands so I can use him here  can't wait for Cozmo to arrive . But I have to be patiënt for two or three weeks  .

It is great to read about your experience with Cozmo . Just one question I am not technical at all, I gues you  charge him with a usb cable but can I use my own phone plug ? I am asking because it is made for the USA market and I live in Europe. Thanks for the answer 

[mweed]

Cosmo has two metal plates on the bottom.  These connect to two pins on his charger station.  He charges by sitting in the charging station.  The charger station has a built in cable with a standard USB plug on the end. You should be able to plug it into any USB charger.

One of the planned updates is for Cosmo to be able to locate the charging station and charge himself.

[Piggy]

Thanks for the answer 

[kat]

My cozmo arrived a couple of days ago and so far I'm very impressed.  I got him largely because I want to learn programming and his SDK is so accessible and fairly easy to use as it's compatible with python. Its a bit of a work research project for me as we may end up running a robotics or programming club at my library some time in the next 12 months.  So I thought Cozmo would be a great possible robot to purchase for the library to use to tech kids to code.  I have had a bit of a play around with Cozmo just in his robot mode and he is super cute.  I have also started mucking around with his SDK - mostly just looking at the example programs they provide but today I modified one of their example programs and had it run successfully on Cozmo.  Quite an achievement for someone who has never done any programming before   If your interested here is a very short video of my success.  I got Cozmo to say his name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGdwmO2k5io&feature=youtu.be

[Piggy]

My Cozmo arrived yesterday , and I played with it for a hour and I most say Cozmo surprised me  the set up is very easy and it is a very cute and well made product. And it is also very entertaining. So far I like it very much    The downside is that it has a built in battery , the three cubes all have batteries you can replace . So why did they not make a replacement battery for Cozmo? But for now I like it very much ! Thanks m weed for your topic  so I now what to expect with Cozmo 

[Piggy]

How do you like your Cozmo so far ? Here he is working great and it really surprised me for such a small robot. It has a great personality. I have to get a new laptop before I can start programming him with SDK . My old one does not work anymore  so I am curious to see how that works out  and I can not wait for the app to update .

[kat]

I'm loving mine .... although I have put him away after only about 1 week of play as he is my Christmas present so my plan is to wait till I've unwrapped him for Christmas before playing with him more.  I did manage to get him to run all of the example programs using the SDK and wrote a program that got him to speak as well as move across the table in an S shape then talk again.  Which was very cool.  They have since updated the SDK and so that means some changes have been made that affect the names of some of the commands used to write programs for him which means I have to work out what has changed and learn the new command names before I can write any more programs for him.  I figure there will almost certainly be another update or two before Christmas so I will need to install the updates after I open him up on Christmas day.  So far I think he is great and just what I was after as far as an easy to program robot goes that can be done by a beginner with no programming knowledge.
There have been lots of requests on the forum for them to make his SDK compatible with one of the block building drag and drop languages that kids are using to learn coding  - like Scratch  -  Which would make programming him super easy for anyone to do.  It isn't too hard using python but can be a bit frustrating as you only have to miss putting in a comma or forget to use a capital letter and your whole program wont work. Figuring out where the mistake is can take ages.   It is super satisfying when it works though
So the time I spent with him was awesome and I'm looking forward to Christmas now so I can play with him some more.

[Piggy]

Hi Kat great to hear you also love Your Cozmo  and to hear you successfully programmed him with SDK  .
It would be great if Anki could make an app with the block building kind of programming used by kids . My bb8 from sphero has a similar app that you can download and the programming is super easy. You can make him do oll sorts of great stuff like making shapes , spin him and change the lights . It is really cool and easy to use .
I think you are right about Anki updating the app before Christmas  that would be great ! I can understand you are looking forward to Christmas what a great present !