Hasta La Gadget!

IRemoco’s chopper is controlled by waving around your iPhone

IRemoco is a remote-control toy helicopter that you drive with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The $100 kit contains the chopper itself, along with a dongle which plugs into the dock connector of your iDevice and sends your instructions to the helicopter. The project — currently seeking funding on Kickstarter — differs from other IR ‘copters in the way you control it.

While you can opt to use on-screen joysticks to fly the helicopter, it looks like a lot more fun to use motion control. The app (already in the App Store to check out for free) uses the accelerometer or gyroscope inside the iDevice to translate the phone’s movements into helicopter’s movements. Tilt the phone to the side and the ‘copter does the same.

Both the helicopter and the remote have rechargeable batteries (via USB), and the helicopter is gyroscopically stabilized, making it easy to fly. Should you crash it, the motors will cut out, and the rotors are all made of bendy plastic so they should bounce back just fine. Should you manage to snap one anyway, there are replacement blades in the box.

The designers, Andrew Ayres and Tom Sisterson, plan to bring more toys to market if this one takes of (sorry), and they will use the same controller dongle, thus making the new toys cheaper. Even now, if you have more than one helicopter (for instance, if you opt for the $150 two-chopper pack) then you can control them from the same phone, touching on-screen buttons to switch between them.

I’m sold. I’d totally love to take one of these for a spin. And here’s hoping Andrew and Tom’s future plans include a helicopter with a camera that can beam back to the iPad’s screen. Then I could finally find out what’s making my neighbor so happy on her fenced-off roof-terrace that she screams in delight.

iRemoco – remote control helicopter for iPhone, iPod & iPad [Kickstarter. Thanks, Paul!]

See Also:

• Helicam Combines Toy Helicopter and Camera for HD Videos
• King Of The Rocket Men Designs Personal Helicopter
• Nigerian Student Builds Home Made Helicopter