Sphero, Inc. (formerly Orbotix) is an American consumer robotics and toy company based in Boulder, Colorado.

Their first product, the Sphero, is a white spherical robot launched in December 2011 capable of rolling around under the control of a smartphone or tablet.

In 2015, Sphero struck a licensing deal with Disney to create a BB-8 robot based on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens film.

[10][11][12] The original Sphero was initially prototyped by its inventors, Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, with a 3D-printed shell and electronics taken from a smartphone.

[15][16] A refreshed version, Sphero 2.0, was released in 2013, featuring a twice-as-fast speed and increased LED brightness.

[17] The toys are controlled with a smartphone or tablet running iOS, Android or Windows Phone via Bluetooth.

[2][18] Users can program the toys with an app called Sphero Macrolab which includes a set of predefined macros, and orbBasic which uses a BASIC-based language.

[22] In July 2014, while participating in Disney's technology accelerator program for startups, Sphero's staff were invited into a private meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who showed them then-unseen photos from the production of the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens and images of BB-8—a spherical droid character introduced in the film, and were offered a licensing deal to produce an official BB-8 toy based on Sphero's technology.

The BB-8 toy was released on September 4, 2015; it is accompanied by a special Star Wars-themed control app, which also features augmented reality "holographic" messages.

[6] In 2017, Sphero released a robotic car modeled after Lightning McQueen as part of their partnership with Disney.

The Mini is charged with a micro USB port, which means that, unlike the Sphero 2.0, it is not waterproof.

The primary function of the robot is its inclusion of an image sensor to detect different colored cards that it can drive over.