The HexBug Fire Ant – a hot new toy!

07/04/2016

My 5 year old son and I had the chance to review the HexBug Fire Ant Micro Robotic Creature recently.  The one we reviewed had a remote control with it which was a pretty cool feature.  Just push a little button on the top of the Fire Ant, a red glows on the Fire Ant to let you know it’s on, grab the remote and away you go!  (also the red light makes it so much fun when you play in the dark!)

We have had HexBugs before but none with a remote so my son thought it was pretty fun to be able to control the HexBug.  The ones without remote just kind of go on their own and when they hit an obstacle they back up and change directions.  Having one with a remote made for a lot more excitement as he set up a little racetrack with obstacles and had the Fire Ant race through the track to see if he could challenge himself by manoeuvring it around the obstacles.  It allowed him to be a bit more interactive with the toy.   AND the remote has two channels, so if a friend with another Fire Ant comes to play, you can race with your friend’s Fire Ant without switching remotes, just switch the Fire Ant to Channel 2 and change your remote to Channel 2 and away you go!  Pretty slick!

All in all, these little toys are quite amazing.  Very intricate parts and very lifelike in the way they look, move and kind of skitter around.  The remote is very touch sensitive, can spin around on a dime and change direction in a blink of an eye.  When the Fire Ant hits something it attempts to climb it or go around it.  It’s very reactive and will continue to move from hardwood to carpet or between sidewalk cracks which I found very impressive.  Sometimes I find the remote control toys get stuck when moving between types of flooring or outdoors on various surfaces.  But the Fire Ant did very well on all the surfaces we tested.  Very seldom did I have to pick it up to move it manually. (except when it went on the lawn with longer grass)

The other cool thing is it has a sleep mode so if it hasn’t been played with and has been stationary for 5 minutes, it shuts down until the remote buttons are pushed again.  This definitely helps to save the battery life as that is the worst part about having a toy with batteries… they die so fast, batteries are expensive and you need so many in all sizes around the house for all the toys that need them!  So I do love the sleep mode feature – definitely helps to preserve battery life on these little critters.

The HexBug Fire Ant is a fun little toy! Pick from five colours – Blue, Green, Red, Orange or Magenta.  They retail for $27.99 at a toy store near you!