A veteran toy racing company is trading slots for smartphone-controlled RC cars

2 months ago 7

Six tiny RC Porsche 911 GT3 R racers lined up connected a Carrera Hybrid contention track.

Carrera, a German institution that has been making slot car toys since the ‘60s, has announced a caller scaled racing acquisition that does distant with the slots altogether. Carrera Hybrid inactive has you racing 1:50-scale cars astir a reconfigurable track, but you power them utilizing an app connected a mobile instrumentality and you’re present escaped to steer anyplace you want, adjacent disconnected the way to overtake an opponent.

Carrera Hybrid is already disposable internationally, but the institution is launching a starter acceptable successful the US connected September 1st for $199.99 that includes a premix of 15 consecutive and curved way pieces and a brace of Porsche 911 GT3 R racers. The institution presently offers a wide enactment of licensed vehicles for its accepted slot car products, but plans to grow the Hybrid mentation with recognizable cars from Mercedes-AMG, Audi, and BMW.

Six Porsche 911 GT3 racers connected a Carrera Hybrid track.

Instead of drafting powerfulness from metallic rails connected the track, the Carrera Hybrid vehicles usage rechargeable batteries bully for astir 30 minutes of racing. Each 1 connects to a mobile instrumentality similar a smartphone oregon a tablet implicit Bluetooth. You tin steer the vehicles by physically turning your instrumentality similar a steering wheel, but the escaped accompanying mobile app, disposable for iOS and Android, tin besides beryllium paired with a wireless controller making the racing consciousness much similar a video game.

Several abbreviated video clips of cars racing astir a Carrera Hybrid track.

Sensors connected the bottommost of each car observe printed patterns connected the way truthful the app ever knows the presumption of each the vehicles, and portion up to 30 users tin contention connected a azygous layout, the app limits that to 16 for competitory races wherever stats are tracked. The escaped roaming quality of Carrera Hybrid creates much opportunities to overtake opponents portion the app increases the realism done dependable effects and by letting players good tune the show and handling of their vehicles including tyre grip and brake sensitivity. The app tin besides simulate assorted way conditions for a bigger challenge, oregon assistance little experienced racers with driving aids.

The institution says it spent the past fewer years processing the Carrera Hybrid. It’s reminiscent of Anki Drive that debuted successful 2013 with a fixed way layout, and the follow-up, Anki Overdrive, that introduced reconfigurable way layouts successful 2015. Overdrive offered a batch of the aforesaid features and functionality of Carrera Hybrid, positive AI-controlled opponents, but Anki yet unopen down successful 2019. Hopefully, fixed Carrera has been making racing toys for astir 60 years, it volition proceed to put successful its Hybrid offering and support the AI-powered racing sets astir for a batch longer than Anki did.