My son asked for a Nintendo 3DS as a gift for starting school.
"If you want games, make them yourself" — so I half-talked him into a Romo instead.
Before opening the box he realised he couldn't play with it without my iPhone, and looked genuinely crestfallen.
Then the box opened and he was completely hooked. Totally satisfied.
The unboxing experience is clearly well thought-out from the first second.
It's a remarkably polished product. Here's a quick look at what opening it is like.
The packaging. Instead of a typical pull-tab tech-product box, you lift the lid like a gift box.
Even the lid is designed for small hands to open easily.
Opened. No plastic bags, no foam filler — nothing fiddly.
Why doesn't anything rattle? The padding is attached to the underside of the lid.
The moment you open it, you're touching the product.
Exactly what the package designer intended — excitement builds steadily.
Seriously, that's it.
The manual covers only the bare minimum safety notes and warranty. There's one small quick-start card:
(1) Plug your iPhone or iPod Touch into the Romo base.
(2) Download the Romo app from the App Store.
(3) Open the app and enjoy.
Wondering if I needed to install the app first, I went ahead and plugged in the iPhone as instructed.
It immediately prompted me to install the app. Of course.
By the way — there's no power button on the Romo base.
It starts up automatically when you plug in the iPhone.
Once the app finishes installing, a movie starts at full volume out of nowhere.
Apparently Romo came from outer space.
At this point the whole family was completely captivated.
When the movie ends, Romo starts moving around with adorable little animations.
No need to worry about turning it on at the edge of a table — it reliably stops before falling off.
Every little touch is so thoughtful it's almost moving.
That said, I'd still avoid turning it on anywhere unstable.
After the initial excitement of unboxing, there's a short setup where you give Romo a name and introduce yourself.
By this point everyone was already at peak excitement, so setup flew by cheerfully.
Throughout the whole process, Romo nods and laughs and reacts — endlessly charming.
After setup you go straight into the tutorial.
It's not a tutorial where you're taught anything — rather, Romo has just been born and can barely move, and you teach it one action at a time.
By this point Romo feels completely like a friend.
This is one of the most delightful products I've encountered in a long time.
Hope this gives some sense of how fun the unboxing experience is.
More to come once I've had more time to play with it.
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