Robotic toymaker Sphero unveils Ultimate Lightning McQueen — a chatty, smartphone-controlled car

While Sphero^[1] has released a whole lineup of robotic, Internet-connected toys, it remains best-known for its BB-8 droid^[2] from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Today it’s launching its next Disney tie-in — Ultimate Lightning McQueen.

This is a car that you can control from your iPhone or Android, based on the Owen Wilson-voiced character from Pixar’s Cars franchise. (Cars 3 is coming out on June 16.) Ultimate Lightning McQueen is available today for a price of $299.

“As our partnership with Disney has evolved, we’ve been able to start to look at further properties within the Disney portfolio,” explained Product Manager Jenica Watts. (Sphero’s initial connection to Disney was as part of the Disney Accelerator^[3].) “One of the teams had the opportunity to build an amazing, lifelike Lightning McQueen.”

The idea of a remote-controlled car from Cars might not seem all that novel, but it looks like Sphero has put a lot of work into bringing the character to life. Probably the first thing you’ll notice is that his front windshield is an LCD screen displaying Lightning’s animated eyes. And he talks, too — Watts said this is the first time a speaker has been built into a Sphero toy, and there’s even an animatronic mouth that moves as he speaks.

There’s also a feature that Sphero calls “emotive suspension.” That means Lightning doesn’t just drive around — his left and right sides also twitch up and down with excitement, and he’ll speak and move in response to taps on his roof, hood and doors....