{"id":251066,"date":"2026-01-25T12:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T12:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251066\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T12:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T12:44:14","slug":"this-transformer-is-a-sick-robot-and-sad-bluetooth-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251066\/","title":{"rendered":"This Transformer Is a Sick Robot and Sad Bluetooth Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever I see a toy robot<\/a>, I feel like a kid again. Not because of Transformers, but because I\u2014a millennial and self-proclaimed Cartoon Network kid\u2014grew up on Dexter\u2019s Lab, and man, did that show burrow its way into my brain. Who knows? Maybe if I hadn\u2019t been so awful at doing useful stuff like math and chemistry, Dexter might have compelled me to become a scientist or an engineer.<\/p>\n

As you may have gathered from reading this, though, I didn\u2019t do that. I did, however, do the next best thing, apparently: I chose to write about technology. I say \u201cnext best\u201d 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\u2019 robotic Transformer.<\/p>\n

Robosen Soundwave G1<\/p>\n

The Soundwave G1 is an impressive robot with bad sound. For the Transformers superfans only.<\/p>\n

Impressive robotics Lots of different commands Transformation into cassette mode rocks Subpar Bluetooth sound Subpar battery life Hit or miss voice command recognition Make some noise for Soundwave <\/p>\n

When I first saw Robosen\u2019s new ultra-expensive, elaborate Transformer robot, the Soundwave G1<\/a>, it was hard not to get excited. Not just because (duh) it\u2019s a Transformer robot, but because Soundwave shapeshifts into a speaker\u2014a functional one.<\/p>\n

\"Robosen\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

In case you didn\u2019t catch my missive when this thing was launched<\/a>, the Soundwave G1 takes Robosen\u2019s robotic Transformers (yes, there are many<\/a>) 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\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Soundwave superior <\/p>\n

There are really two ways you can review Robosen\u2019s Soundwave G1: as a toy and as a speaker. I\u2019m going to try to do both right now, and for the sake of all the potential Transformers<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\"Robosen\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

This thing is a Robot, man\u2014capital \u201cR\u201d 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 \u201c28 high-precision intelligent servo motors\u201d and 84 custom microchips. That means when Soundwave starts moving around and doing his Transformer thing, it\u2019s really moving. The feet articulate, the arms move in two joints, the head pops out, and the shoulder-mounted \u201csonic cannon\u201d 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\u2019 defense, I can only imagine fitting a tape deck in this thing would be an engineering nightmare. In terms of look and feel, it\u2019s the robot toy most people my age wanted as a kid, and for $1,400, it damn well should be.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cattack\u201d or \u201cdefend,\u201d which make the robot shoot with its included toy gun and gesture. There are also more Transformers-specific commands like \u201cMegatron\u201d or \u201cLaserbeak,\u201d in which the Soundwave G1 says stuff from the show while\u00a0gesticulating. 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.<\/p>\n

\"RobosenMid transformation, but also maybe yoga, I don\u2019t know. \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

The most impressive command of them all is the transform one, though. By shouting \u201cHey Soundwave, transform,\u201d 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\u2019s wild, but also that leads me to my first and biggest downside of the Soundwave G1.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t know what my record was for shouting \u201cHey Soundwave\u201d without the robot acknowledging me, but I\u2019m pretty sure I hit over a dozen. C\u2019mon, Robosen; if I wanted to be agitated by a voice assistant, I would just talk to my Nest speaker<\/a> at home.<\/p>\n

To add to the frustration, I also find it really hard to understand what Soundwave G1 is saying. That\u2019s partially because canonically, Soundwave talks in a vocoder-like voice that blends synth and human speech, but also because the speakers aren\u2019t the best (which is something I\u2019ll get into more later).<\/p>\n

\"RobosenAn unsuspecting tape deck\u2026 \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

With all that said, there is an app where you can punch in commands on your phone. These definitely work fine, and if you\u2019re sick of screaming into the void, they may actually be the best way to use the Soundwave G1. There\u2019s other stuff you can do in the companion app<\/a>, too<\/p>\n

\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Robosen<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Robosen<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo \t\t\t\t \t\t <\/p>\n

Here, you can use a touchscreen D-pad to tell Soundwave to walk around (it can move left, right, forward, or backward), and you can even program your own actions. Action programming, I must warn you, is pretty far from intuitive, though I did have some minor success with using the block-based programming UI to get Soundwave to do simple stuff like twist its arms. It\u2019s a nice touch, but I\u2019m willing to wager that most people aren\u2019t going to want to spend loads of time in the app programming this thing.<\/p>\n

\"Robosen\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an audio mode that, when selected in the app, automatically transforms the robot into the cassette mode and lets you play about two dozen tracks from the original cartoon. Honestly, that may be my favorite app-based touch since I\u2019m a big fan of the original score with all of its obnoxious guitar<\/a>\u00a0and \u201980s riffage.<\/p>\n

Lastly, there\u2019s a \u201cmini theater\u201d mode where Soundwave is meant to do what amounts to a short demo while you watch a video in the app, but I couldn\u2019t really get the feature to work correctly. After launching the mini theater feature and waiting for the demo to load, Soundwave did some thrashing about, but the in-app video wouldn\u2019t load. In Robosen\u2019s defense, I was using an early version of the app to test Soundwave, so maybe that had something to do with it? Either way, no dice for me.<\/p>\n

A Decepticon indeed <\/p>\n

As I mentioned before, there are two ways to review the Soundwave, and the second is as a Bluetooth speaker<\/a>. By shouting at Soundwave to transform, you can use Robosen\u2019s robot as a Bluetooth speaker. All you have to do is pull up your phone\u2019s Bluetooth and connect, and boom, you\u2019re in business.<\/p>\n

As I wrote when this robot was first announced, I was curious about whether the Soundwave G1 would actually sound decent. I mean, it\u2019s a toy, to be sure, but it is also $1,400, so decent sound isn\u2019t totally\u00a0out of the question, right? Right?..<\/p>\n

\"Robosen\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

I\u2019m sad to say my first inclination was correct; the Soundwave G1 sounds sort of bad. It\u2019s not unlistenable, but definitely not a speaker that you\u2019re going to want to use for anything other than the novelty of it all. Sound is pretty flat and one-dimensional, and for what I assume are engineering reasons, the sound actually emanates from the back of the robot when it\u2019s in cassette mode, which is not ideal for fidelity.<\/p>\n

I will say, though, I think unintentionally, the crappy sound kind of works? It almost sounds lo-fi. It\u2019s bad enough that I sort of wish that Robosen had leaned into the badness, applying some kind of tape-like effect to the audio you listen to that makes it feel as though the \u201980s are alive and well. I mean, this thing doesn\u2019t actually play tapes, but what if it sounded\u00a0like you were playing tapes? Now that\u2019d be righteous.<\/p>\n

\"RobosenShiny buttons. \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

A nice touch is the inclusion of physical buttons on the Soundwave G1, which can be pressed and used as you would on a tape player. There\u2019s a track skipping button (forward and back) as well as a play button and a stop button. There\u2019s also a record button that can actually record your voice! I may have to redact the exclamation point here, though, because I couldn\u2019t get Soundwave to record anything I said.<\/p>\n

\"RobosenWhat do you think Pikachu has to say about all this? \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

When I pressed the record button, it prompted me to record after the beep. I did. Then I pressed stop to stop the recording. When I listened back to my recordings in the app, though, or tried to play them from the robot by pressing the play button, I didn\u2019t hear much of anything. Maybe the microphone on my robotic son is defective? Maybe it\u2019s just poor quality? I don\u2019t know, but nothing I seemed to do forced Soundwave to listen to me. I don\u2019t speak Decepticon, apparently.<\/p>\n

And even if I did speak Decepticon, I wouldn\u2019t have to speak very much of it. The battery on the Soundwave G1 is perhaps just as bad as batteries were in 1984 when Transformers aired. I think, if you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll get an hour and a half out of the Soundwave G1, and that\u2019s at lower volumes. I got 2 hours, but only 25 mins of that were actually spent playing music; the rest of the time, the Soundwave G1 was just chilling there in cassette mode. That bad battery can be a little dangerous, too. A few times while using the Sondwave G1, the battery ran out while the robot was standing, and the whole thing went limp, causing it to fall to the ground like a sack of robotic potatoes. Ouch.<\/p>\n

\"RobosenSame, tbh. \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

This is all to say that you do not want to use the Soundwave G1 as a Bluetooth speaker in any sort of serious way, which is probably fine for most people. But if you, like me, entertained the idea that Soundwave would sound decent, you can rid yourself of that fantasy now.<\/p>\n

Should you soundwave goodbye to $1,400? \"RobosenAre Autobots really inferior, though? \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Listen, who am I to tell you what to do with your money? I don\u2019t know how you live. To me, $1,400 is a lot of money. That\u2019s more than a brand new iPhone 17, or two Nintendo Switch 2s<\/a>, or almost half the price of a Chevy Chevette in 1984<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But maybe you\u2019ve been robbing banks with the Decepticons and have money to blow. And maybe you want to use a little bit of that cash on a robot that you can impress your friends with for five minutes. If you\u2019re that person, then I guess go for it: the Soundwave G1 is an impressive robot when it works, and you don\u2019t have to shout at it 400 times to transform. The Bluetooth speaker stuff is definitely a parlor trick, but as long as you know that going in, I\u2019m going to say no harm, no foul.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, call me soft, but it\u2019s just hard to get mad at a robot transformer that I don\u2019t think most people are expecting to do much other than, well, transform. If you want a good Bluetooth speaker, go buy that; if you want a robot that makes you feel like a kid again, and you\u2019re wealthier than I\u2019ll ever be, then I guess do as Megatron does and go with the Soundwave G1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whenever I see a toy robot, I feel like a kid again. Not because of Transformers, but because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[48,145862,111,139,69,763,11393,145,11395,66734],"class_list":{"0":"post-251066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-bluetooth-speakers","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-reviews","14":"tag-robots","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-toys","17":"tag-transformers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}