This Transformer Is a Sick Robot and Sad Bluetooth Speaker

Whenever I see a toy robot, I feel like a kid again. Not because of Transformers, but because I—a millennial and self-proclaimed Cartoon Network kid—grew up on Dexter’s Lab, and man, did that show burrow its way into my brain. Who knows? Maybe if I hadn’t been so awful at doing useful stuff like math and chemistry, Dexter might have compelled me to become a scientist or an engineer.

As you may have gathered from reading this, though, I didn’t do that. I did, however, do the next best thing, apparently: I chose to write about technology. I say “next best” because this road, unbeknownst to me at the time, is one that led me straight to something that scratches that childhood itch just as much as lab coats and beakers: a big friggin’ robotic Transformer.

Make some noise for Soundwave

When I first saw Robosen’s new ultra-expensive, elaborate Transformer robot, the Soundwave G1, it was hard not to get excited. Not just because (duh) it’s a Transformer robot, but because Soundwave shapeshifts into a speaker—a functional one.

In case you didn’t catch my missive when this thing was launched, the Soundwave G1 takes Robosen’s robotic Transformers (yes, there are many) a step further and features a Bluetooth speaker mode that can be used when Soundwave is all crumpled up in its cassette player form. That’s sick for hardcore Transformer fans since it brings the original schtick of Soundwave to life, but also for me personally because I pay my bills in part by reviewing speakers.

In short, my interests collided here in a big way, which means I got a chance to test out Soundwave myself, and boy, do I have some thoughts.

Soundwave superior

There are really two ways you can review Robosen’s Soundwave G1: as a toy and as a speaker. I’m going to try to do both right now, and for the sake of all the potential Transformers fans out there reading this, I am going to start with the fun stuff first. How, you might ask, is the Soundwave G1 as a toy? Answer: kind of sick.

This thing is a Robot, man—capital “R” intended. When you pick it up, you can feel all the robotics inside, which is because there are a lot. According to Robosen, there are “28 high-precision intelligent servo motors” and 84 custom microchips. That means when Soundwave starts moving around and doing his Transformer thing, it’s really moving. The feet articulate, the arms move in two joints, the head pops out, and the shoulder-mounted “sonic cannon” articulates and lights up. Even the cassette player portion pops out for dramatic effect, though you cannot actually play real tapes with it, which is a bummer. In Robosens’ defense, I can only imagine fitting a tape deck in this thing would be an engineering nightmare. In terms of look and feel, it’s the robot toy most people my age wanted as a kid, and for $1,400, it damn well should be.

The Soundwave G1 also understands quite a few commands. With the help of a built-in microphone, you can shout at your expensive robot and get it to do things. Altogether, there are 48 pre-programmed voice commands that include stuff like “attack” or “defend,” which make the robot shoot with its included toy gun and gesture. There are also more Transformers-specific commands like “Megatron” or “Laserbeak,” in which the Soundwave G1 says stuff from the show while gesticulating. A fun fact here is that they got the original Soundwave voice actor, Frank Welker, to come in and do some voice acting for the robot.

The most impressive command of them all is the transform one, though. By shouting “Hey Soundwave, transform,” you get to watch the robot dramatically bend all of its limbs up and curl into a tape player from a robot mode or vice versa. It’s wild, but also that leads me to my first and biggest downside of the Soundwave G1.

While I love the inclusion of a voice command feature, this was also easily the biggest point of frustration when playing the robot. I fear Soundwave, after all the years of laser battling with Autobots, may be a little hard of hearing. Time after time, I was forced to scream at this giant hunk of plastic, begging it to do stuff. I don’t know what my record was for shouting “Hey Soundwave” without the robot acknowledging me, but I’m pretty sure I hit over a dozen. C’mon, Robosen; if I wanted to be agitated by a voice assistant, I would just talk to my Nest speaker at home.

To add to the frustration, I also find it really hard to understand what Soundwave G1 is saying. That’s partially because canonically, Soundwave talks in a vocoder-like voice that blends synth and human speech, but also because the speakers aren’t the best (which is something I’ll get into more later).

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