Bertrand Leroy has released this free nifty little app to control your WowWee Rovio from your iPhone. While it is a little barebones in features, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Using the default web interface on Mobile Safari can be quite frustrating with the unresponsive buttons and start/stop type operation. Rovio Driver utilizes the iPhone’s accelerometer to control forward/backward movement, while a swipe across the screen rotates the Rovio on its axis. And double tapping the screen will adjust the camera head position. It’s honestly a very intuitive use of the iPhone’s UI. 

There are a few little quirks and hopefully Leroy will tend to them in future releases.

• The video only works when you are in play mode. That also means that the accelerometer is functional. So if you want to watch from a stopped position, forget it. 
• Currently there is no way to adjust the video quality. Set at best quality, there is a considerable amount of lag, even when operating within my LAN. There is a slider control for speed on the settings page, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
• The settings screen comes up every time you access the app. It’s a bit of a nuisance as I don’t think many people need to adjust this at every launch. Also there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back to this screen without closing/relaunching the app.
• Over the edge network, the lag is so great that it’s unusable. Perhaps 3G iPhone owners have better luck. 

All in all, I say it’s the start of a great app. Keep it up Leroy!

Recently picked up WowWee’s Rovio to watch the house and keep tabs on Oreo from a remote location. Despite some negative feedback, I have to say that it does exactly what I expected it to. Maybe I’m not a robot geek and don’t mind some of the Rovio’s shortcomings.

The webcam quality is average at best. You can’t see anything in dim lighting, in fact I had to turn on the brightness setting to max in order to make even ambient lighting visually acceptable. The attached headlight is useless. Although some resilient owners have made modifications to increase the lighting. Plus the headlight’s location is on the body, not on the motorized head. Speaking of, the head does not move freely up and down, it only has 3 available positions with the latter pointing straight up at the ceiling. Don’t know why I would want that.

Rovio’s software does tend to crash fromtime to time, which is certainly a problem if you’re away for days at a time. Luckily I work at home and I only need to go to the main floor to reset it. For the rest of the working class stiffs, you may come home to find your Rovio out of power or stuck under a table as it tries to navigate its way around your home. Supposedly the TrueTrack navigation is supposed to help Rovio find its dock and follow its pre-programmed paths, but simple things like chairs and tables can easily give it problems. Which you would hope it would do a better job considering the short battery charge anywhere between 15-45 minutes on a full charge.

	Having said much of the negative aspects of the Rovio, it does serve it’s purpose as so long as you realize that you are getting pretty what you paid. First it’s admin interface is web based. So there’s no need to install software that is necessary to run Rovio.
	That also means you can easily log into your Rovio with your iPhone or PDA. But for some odd reason, the interface opens very small in the corner of Safari Mobile. You can obviously zoom into it, but whoever wrote the HTML code for it needs to look over his/her work. No big deal.

You can add extra TrueTrack beacons to expand its range. Currently I don’t know where you can buy these, so this point is moot. But it’s still something to note.

And most importantly is that it is a webcam on wheels. Being that my dog doesn’t like to stay in one location, it allows me to look around rather than just have a fixed camera.

Pros

• Maneuverable webcam
• Web based interface
• Pre-programmed paths
• Active community for mods

Cons

• Cost – $300
• Webcam quality is poor to average
• Battery lasts less than 1 hour on full charge
• Limited to 3 camera head positions