What is it? According to Sphero, the Mini is "the world's smallest robotic ball", which seems about right. It's like a ping pong ball-sized version of the tech company's hit Star Wars toy BB-8. It has less features but it's also more responsive, more versatile, faster, and a little more adaptive.
What's in the box? The ball, a coloured case, a charger, and a handful of accessories, including road cones and ten pin bowling pins. You'll also need to download an app to use it, while full-charge takes an hour, and lasts 45 minutes.
What does it do? Using the app, the Mini speeds around your lounge within a 10-metre range at one metre-per-second. It's lightning quick and, once you get to grips with it, a hell of a lot of fun. You can program it to wander through mazes and around obstacles, use it to play games via the app, and colour co-ordinate it.
What's the best feature? How responsive it is. We had great fun using the Mini as a cat toy, slowly rolling up to her then speeding off, making her chase it around the room. That's gotta be some good exercise - although she really tried to get her claws into it when she finally caught it.
