Nabaztag, the Wireless Bunny
Announcing "Nabaztag" - the wireless bunny. This page explores what the wi-fi rabbit can do....
What is Nabaztag?
Nabaztag is a wi-fi enabled friendly little chap (or chappette) that lives on your desk and connects to the Internet via an existing wireless network. Nabaztag can connect to the net, get useful information and provide it to you in a fun and friendly way - you can get your desktop rabbit to tell you the time, wake you up with your favourite MP3 track, read some news headlines from the net, let you know that new email's arrived and give you a weather forecast. If you happen to have a his-n-hers on the same network, they can talk to each other over wi-fi and "get married".
Talks - The Nabaztag uses sound, lights and waggly ears to communicate to you- Content alerts - The critter uses its Internet connection to tell you when you have a message, when news breaks, weather updates, travel news, etc. Will support RSS feeds too, apparently...
- Remote Messaging - Send a message to Nabaztag via a website while you're away - perhaps to leave a message for your partner... the message will be delivered over Broadband Advice and Wi-fi
- Communicate with other bunnies - Get those ears in sync!
- Configurable - Setup via a desktop PC or MAC web browser
- Extra services - Comes with a set of free services and messages, but you'll be able to subscribe to extra premium services
- And it's cute too - Flashing lights, wiggly ears, rabbit-shaped... and a hi-tech gadget - it's what your wi-fi was meant for!
Availability Here's what we have on UK availability:
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Nabaztag Review
In July 2006, we finally got our hands on a Nabaztag, and we interviewed our little friend for our online radio show.
In summary, we're fairly impressed with the little chap - once you've got him set up correctly, he'll sit on your desk and keep you amused. Out of the box, our Nabaztag required some setup - involving getting our PC to establish a direct connection to the Nabaztag - we've outlined the process on our other Nabaztag page over on our podcast site - see our Nabaztag page
To get the most of this wi-fi bunny, you need to sign up to the extra services available from Nabaztag, as after a while, you'll find the free services a little limited, although there's enough with the free service to whet your appetite.
Most of the interaction with Nabaztag takes place via the Nabaztag site, so it's a case of logging on to nabaztag.com, making some changes to your settings, then waiting a few moments while the information gets downloaded to your Nabaztag.
Nabaztag is a fun gadget, as long as you don't take it too seriously. If you have wi-fi, a sense of humour, and £80 kicking around in your bank account, get one... and enjoy!
We featured the Nabaztag in show 5 of our podcast - have a listen online via frequencycast.co.uk to hear what we think of the Nabaztag
  PODCAST FEATURE:
We featured the Nabaztag in Show 5 of our online tech radio show. Listen to the show online, or download it to your MP3 player. Listen to Show 05 | What is FrequencyCast? | Add us to iTunes |
F.A.Q
| Connecting | Having a problem getting a connection? Here's what the lights mean:
A pulsing purple light underneath the rabbit means that the Nabaztag is connected and working OK. A flashing orange underside indicates a loss of wireless or network connectivity (sometimes happens with wi-fi, so temporary bouts of orange aren't a problem). |
| Two green lights | We've been asked by Giles Best (via our podcast) and Jackcday about how to handle situations where the Nabaztag has got two green lights and two orange. The Nabaztag has to have an Internet connection before the Nabaztag server can connect to it, and if you don't have all three lights on, you won't be able to get a connection. From our experience, having two green lights indicates that the rabbit can connect to your router, but can't make an onward connection to the Internet. You should check the Nabaztag's wi-fi settings, especially the WEP (wireless security) and the DNS settings (required to resolve domain names into IP addresses. If you need help connecting a wi-fi device, like the Nabaztag, to your wireless network, try posting a message to our Networking forum, including as much technical info as possible. |
| Connecting on a wireless network | Question: Can a bunny connect to a router that have password on it... and if so, how? Yes, a Nabaztag will connect to a wireless netnwork that uses WEP, WPA (TKIP) or PSK key passwo wireless passwordrds. As for connection... Nabaztag creates its own wireless hotspot that you log on to from a computer. You manage the settings via a web browser on a connected computer. |
Got a question on the Nabaztag? Let us know!!
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