Anki Overdrive Starter Kit

Product Description

What makes Anki OVERDRIVE the world's most intelligent battle racing system? Tech so advanced, it feels like the future. Each Supercar is a self-aware robot, driven by powerful artificial intelligence (A.I.) and equipped with deadly strategy. Whatever track you build, they'll learn it. Wherever you drive, they'll hunt you down. The better you play, the better they become. Whether you battle A.I. opponents or friends, your tactical options are unlimited. And with continuous software updates, the gameplay always stays fresh. Customize weapons. Swap out cars. Build new tracks. It’s easy to pick up, and nearly impossible to put down. The future of play has arrived.

Features

• Use your mobile device to take command of real robotic Supercars in Anki OVERDRIVE.
• Build up to eight battlefields in seconds with the Starter Kit.
• Battle and race against friends or AI controlled vehicles. Wifi required for battles between iOS and Android devices
• An Anki OVERDRIVE Starter Kit and a compatible mobile device are required to play.
• Expand the battle with expansion tracks, Supercars and the all-new Supertrucks.

Top Reviews

A Really Neat System for Anybody to Have - 2 year review with *tips* !
by ATX_Mom (4 out of 5 stars)
November 27, 2017

**Written by my 13 yr old - Purchased Christmas 2015**

Overall this is a really neat system. I think anyone 8-88 can enjoy. Most people will find this to be a really cool thing to have for a kid. It's great to use when friends come over since its 4 player (although you do need 4 cars and 4 devices to play with 4 players). I have had all of my track and cars for 2 years and everything still works really well. I hope you enjoy my review!

How it works: There are little robotic supercars that scan codes on the track to find out where they are on your track layout. Then, they can use weapons and power ups on each other and themselves. The cars then try and attack each other. When you run out of health, your car deactivates for a few seconds. There are a lot of modes to use. Things to note:
* Clean cars with tire cleaner often! Tires can become slippery and make cars drive off the track.
* You NEED a "˜device' to play, that is how the cars work. Devices include: iPhone 4s and newer, iPad mini and newer, and various androids. You can visit ANKI for a chart of compatible devices.
* You will also need to set up an Anki account per person to save your game progress.
* Make sure your cars are working well. If one does not work, Anki has a great customer service so let them know. We lost our tire cleaner and reached out to them. They responded in a few minutes and shipped a brand new to us for free! They also have many troubleshooting tips for you on their website.
* Be nice to the cars and track. They are not super durable, but they can definitely handle most crashes and drops. I have had them fall 3`-4` and they still all work fine. They don't like water and if you use water to clean the track use a small amount. And do make sure it's dry before playing.
* Be sure to pop the cars on the charger between rounds. They only last 15-25 mins on one charge and take 5-10 mins to fully charge so make sure when they aren't driving, they are charging. The cars have 5 multicolor LEDs: 2 in front, 2 in back, and 1 on top that is very bright. When you finish playing, press the small grey button beneath each car to turn it off so the bright top light will turn off. Also prevents car from losing battery life rather than leaving them on 24/7
* I suggest not letting little ones (less than 5-6 years old) use this without being supervised by older ones. And if they don't have their own device, they will need yours to play.
* While these cars are good at staying on the track, they CAN come off so don't drive too recklessly.
* Go wild with your track layouts! Look up "˜Anki Overdrive' on YouTube and see what these pieces are capable of.
* Store your tracks when you're done with them. The skin's oil (bare feet for example) can leave stains that are hard to remove. So be careful when you leave it out.
* This is backwards compatible with Anki Drive. So if you have the original Anki Drive cars those work on this track as well.

I feel like I have covered most of the important things you need to know. Have fun with this toy, but be careful. And be sure to keep your eyes open for deals on this wonderful toy and its accessories!
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Fun toy, but beware investing into more cars.
by VV (3 out of 5 stars)
November 13, 2017

We've owned this toy for two years and it's a fun mix of hardware and apps that is pretty unique in that it actually blends the two seamlessly. The app tracks your driver's progress, incorporates micro transactions for purchasing weapon upgrades, etc. However, most importantly, it's constantly being updated. Having let the game collect dust for a few months, it's refreshing to see the progress that the devs have made.

Some complaints, the batteries are now shot after less than two years of use and don't even last beyond two rounds of games. This has happened to two of our cars. There's no way to easily replace the batteries unless you feel comfortable soldering PCBs. After contacting tech support, I managed to get a clear definition of the threshold for getting your $50 toy car repaired. If after a full charge, the car cannot last a round, then it is considered to be adversely affecting your play experience, at which point they'll probably repair it. "Probably" because you only get 1 year warranty, which is just enough time for the LiPo batteries included in the car to function normally. So in essence you get a battery-dependent toy that has a worse repairability rating than an iPhone with a battery that is guaranteed to degrade faster than anything in your phone or laptop.
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App Headaches and Heartaches
by Amazon Customer (2 out of 5 stars)
October 9, 2017

My advice to every parent thinking of buying this seemingly cool set - don't get it! On the surface, it can be a very fun game, especially if you can have more than two players or have 4 cars and can run the other cars as bots. But unfortunately, it's the software app that prevents this toy from being great.

They are constantly upgrading the software, which you think would be great, but it's causing incompatibility issues across different tablets (Amazon vs a regular android tablet) unless all your players are using the same types of devices. Unless all your software apps are upgraded exactly the same, you won't be able to race each other and are forced to play solo. The upgrades have also removed older versions of the game including the old campaigns, so if you were part way through a campaign when the upgrade hits, well sorry you lose all your progression and have to start over in a brand new campaign. This is not to mention the numerous bluetooth issues I've had connecting to cars since we've had the set less than a year ago. Did I mention that I'm an electronics engineer? And yet I'm still having headaches every time I fire up the app that is REQUIRED to play.

And let's think about this for a moment, if you think that this set will be able to be pulled out of the closet and played with fond memories like the slot race tracks of old, guess again. I seriously doubt this company will be keeping up the app that's required to play with this track even 5 years from now. The set will be an expensive pile of plastic that you won't even be able to unload on Ebay.
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Good Concept - Glitches - Bad Support
by JR Ball (3 out of 5 stars)
January 3, 2016

What a great new concept! But as is often the case with new concepts, there are some glitches for sure. The cars have trouble staying on the track especially with 3 or 4 cars racing! Cars often get turned around and run head-on towards other cars knocking them off course. When a car goes off track, the driver's screen prevents the driver from pausing the race, so you depend on another driver to notice your distress and delay the race enough for you to replace your car less you attempt to replace it with the other cars going full speed. That usually just ends in another car going off track due to the interference of your hand and/ or slow moving car. Many races become dominated by the frequent pauses to the race due to such troubles. Then there is the very short battery life of these cars. Regarding battery life, you have to make sure that you don't make the car with the lowest battery the host of the race because if the host car dies during the race, then the whole race is ended abruptly. When you're 38 laps into a 40 lap race, it's hard to recruit drivers in the family to race again! Lastly, there is the erratic behavior or the race car gone rogue. Two days after Christmas Ground Shock began acting crazy! It would steer itself erratically while being unresponsive to the driver's controls. I contacted ANKI support after following its online suggestions for car chaos. The support person asked me for a photo and a video of the car and behavior of concern. I sent all requested, but afterwards I was only told to clean the tires and make sure nothing was blocking the underside sensor. I assured this person that all was clean and unobstructed, but I got no further reply! Nothing. I continued to inquire of further support 3 more times before giving up on their involvement. I ended up having to pack it all up and exchange the whole set for a new one. What a hassle. To just exchange the car would have been supportive. We haven't opened the new set yet, so I'll update this review.
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Coolest Toy Santa Brought!! Great Customer Service by Anki!!
by Father of Sons (5 out of 5 stars)
January 1, 2017

This kit is simply awesome! I did a lot of research before I bought this for my sons (aged 6 and 7) for Christmas. I was worried it would be too difficult for them, but we all know how tech savvy kids are today. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TO KIDS AND ADULTS!! I bought two extra cars so the boys would be able to race against computer controlled drivers, which works excellently, but the wife and I have been using them plenty too! You will fall in love with Overdrive as soon as you start opening the box! Everything is engineered flawlessly: from the mechanism that holds the cars in the packaging, the sticky pad used to clean the car tires, the "Getting Started" booklet, etc! It's obvious the designers of this system are either big kids themselves or have kids at home. WE LOVE IT!!

Setting up the track is very simple. The ends of the track click together with magnets. The cars are set on the track and then do at least 2 laps to read the track. Now, make sure you have devices that use Bluetooth 4.00 (with full BLE support). My boys' old Kindles weren't compatible, but thankfully we also got them Fire 8's for Christmas, which worked perfect. I read in another review that you couldn't use Apple devices and Android devices together. However, we have found no issues at all mixing and matching different devices. I will mention that it seems like Apple devices change lanes better than Android, but we've only been using Overdrive for a week or less.

I understand the tech that is involved in making everything work for Anki Overdrive, but it still seems like magic! The only slight downside is the physical connection to the race like pulling a trigger for throttle on slot cars, for example, isn't there. Thankfully, the addition of weapons and battle makes up for that. The cars themselves will cruise around the track without input from a player fine.

A small negative we have noticed is that the rail kits I purchased separately from the Anki website don't stay on very well. They're supposed to click/snap into the edge of the track pieces, but they don't stay on as well as I would like. It's a bit surprising, really, because the rest of the systems are engineered so well. Also, the ramp kit doesn't work as well as the rest of the track. Too often, the cars careen off the sides of the ramp, which can be solved with the rail kits but the cars will eventually unclip the rails from the track. The bigger issue is that the cars will often do a 180 after landing on the other side of the ramp! Still, we have left the ramp in our track system because it works more than it fails and the boys enjoy the jump.

NOW, let me mention Anki's customer service. I had bought add-ons from the Anki website directly before Christmas (20% off!!) including: two rail kits, a jump kit, a straight "speed" kit, a curved track kit, and Supercar Thermo. I had also purchased Supercar Guardian from an Amazon Lightning Deal. On Christmas day, we excitedly set up the track and everyone sat down eager to play. Everything worked well, except Guardian, which would spin in circles. The right drive wheel was the only one working properly or perhaps too much? Troubleshooting tips online for a possible misaligned tire or bent axle didn't solve the issue. So, I picked up the phone on CHRISTMAS DAY, without much hope of even reaching anyone. I was immediately connected to Moises at Anki and also later Lauren on email. They were very kind, understanding, and apologetic! The very same day, they put a new Guardian in the mail with 2 day shipping. Half a week later, we were all up and running! THANK YOU, ANKI! It's not enough to make quality products, you must support them as well, which Anki clearly understands. I will be purchasing more from them in the future.

To put it simply, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Anki Overdrive! It's fun for kids and adults. They have made a high quality, enjoyable race track system and their customer service stands behind the products! Again, THANK YOU ANKI!
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Amazing racing fun, once you get it working with a compatible device
by BibleMoneyMatters . com (5 out of 5 stars)
December 31, 2016

The Anki Overdrive set was given to my son for Christmas by his grandmother, and it promised to be the hit of the Christmas party... if only we could have gotten it working.

When we opened the set we un-packaged the cars, the tracks, the chargers and everything else - and put the cars on the charger. The track went together great - the magnetized tracks snap together super easy. So far, so good.

Then we downloaded the app on my son's phone, a Motorola Moto X. The app downloaded from Amazon, and appeared to be working. So we went through the setup process on the app, updated the firmware for both cars, put the cars on the track, etc. Then we tried to do a race. The cars wouldn't connect to the app on the Moto X. Or one car would connect and not the other.

We monkeyed with it for like 1/2 an hour and then decided to try it on my phone, a Motorola Moto X 2nd Gen, and no luck again.

We tried the Google Nexus 7 tablet, and we were able to connect to the cars this time, but when it came time to scan the track the cars just sat there and never moved.

We also tried another old Samsung tablet, but that one also wouldn't connect. So when it came down to it we tried the following devices and were never able to get the Anki Overdrive set working:
- Motorola Moto X 1st Gen (2 devices no luck)
- Motorola Moto X 2nd Gen
- Google Nexus 7 tablet (newer version)
- Samsung tablet

After having the letdown on Christmas eve and not being able to play with the cars, on Christmas Day the set miraculously started working with the Moto X 2nd gen device long enough to do like 3 races, but then stopped connecting to the cars again. So finally I went online to figure out if others were having the same problems. It turns out that the set has some pretty specific devices that it recommends people use that use Bluetooth LE 4.0, and apparently none of our devices that we have were 100% compatible. In fact, our devices were actually on the "not compatible" list. Ugh.

Before you buy this track I recommend you figure out for sure if your device is compatible, otherwise you'll end up running into the same issues we did, guaranteed.

Finally after doing further research we found that the newest Kindle Fire 5th generation devices were in fact compatible with this Anki Overdrive set. Since those tablets were only $50, we bought one with a Christmas gift card.

After unboxing the new tablet we downloaded the app from Amazon, we got everything up and running.

This time the app on the Kindle Fire connected the first try to both cars and we were able to get the game up and running without any issues. We were able to play single player games, and host a multi-player game as well.

When the Kindle Fire hosts a game, we're able to connect all of the devices mentioned above over the same WiFi network, and control the second car, as long as the Fire hosts the game and controls the first car. The other devices cannot host a game or play a single player game on their own without the Fire.

Once we got everything running my son declared that this Anki Overdrive set was the "best Christmas gift ever" and he hasn't stopped playing since. He's gotten so good at this point that I can't seem to defeat him in battle mode. *sigh. Defeated by a 6 year old.

My advice if you decide to buy this set is make sure your device is compatible with Anki first. If it's not, be aware you may need to get a new device (like the $50 Kindle Fire) in order to get it to work. If you have a device on the compatible list, buy it now - you'll have a ton of fun!
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Initial tires wore quickly, slow customer support from Anki
by CFox (4 out of 5 stars)
January 9, 2018

Bought this for the kids for Christmas. Set up was pretty easy and they love racing. However, after about 2-3 days of racing the tires on one of the cars began to come apart. I went on Anki's website to the support page. Filled out a support request and they boast that most get a response in 1-2 days. After a day or so I did get an automated response saying my request had been received and was being reviewed by the Customer Care team. That was 12/30/2017. It is now 1/9/2018 and I have not heard a peep from them since. I have sent two replies to them above the line in the email that they specified and still nothing. Sent a message on Twitter, and still nothing. I want to like this set, but now the car is erratic due to the tire wear and my son is complaining and asking when it's going to be fixed. Every day when I get home he asks if I have heard anything yet. The answer has been "no." I am on the verge of returning it before time runs out since the item is defective. If you buy this, don't expect any help from Anki when you have a problem.

Update: Moved up from a 1 star to three stars. It took about two weeks for them to finally get in touch with me and then another two weeks to finally get the replacement tires for the cars. After all of that, the cars work well again and they tell me that now with me in their system it will be quicker to get replacement tires when I need them which they claim they provide to customers free of charge. Second set of tires has been much more durable. After 11 months they are still good.
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An honest review from an experienced anki family
by Chris G. (5 out of 5 stars)
January 10, 2016

We have owned the original anki drive, and now this overdrive product. My son and I enjoyed the anki drive product (purchased three expansion cars), but the size of the mat/track was limiting in our small house. So when anki overdrive came out, there was no way we weren't going to try it! We have been using overdrive thoroughly since Christmas, and we love it. My son has spent $$$ on two expansion cars, the collision/intersection track piece, and the launch track jump kit. The new cars seem better designed than previous drive cars, and there is more to play within the software portion (more upgrade options for cars, other types of racing: king of the hill, etc). The ability to configure your track with pieces vs a mat is probably the biggest improvement IMO... Easier to put portion of track away when not playing, and fun to come up with new designs based on how much space you have to work with.

I have read some of the negative reviews of this product and want to offer an opinion: this is a sophisticated, hardware / software based toy, and it will be impacted by user input and potential error (I am in software + UI design for 20 years). With something this complex, there will be challenges in using it and enjoying it to the level of each user's expectation. Bottom line: you get out of it what you put in; it's not going to run by itself flawlessly and never come off the track or have other glitches. For example, the launch kit jump requires the drivers to align in the center of the track for the jump to land safely, which we like because it adds another layer of complexity to the game instead of just watching the cars run around shooting at eachother (I have read some reviews about the cars not landing and/or staying on the track).

Overall, quality seems good, prices are a bit high, but not too bad given the design and technology involved.
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Beware - Longevity Issues
by Tim SDCA (3 out of 5 stars)
May 18, 2017

Overall, its a decent product and my kids enjoy playing with it. However, as a consumer I'm not thrilled with the fact that the tires on these cars don't last long. We purchased this kit for Christmas, along with some additional cars and the kids played with it for a several weeks at first. After that, we boxed it up for a while and hadn't used it since. Next time we took it out to use it, I noticed that all of the tires on the 5 cars we have had deteriorated to the point they wouldn't even stay on the cars (see photo). I called the company and while they don't have tires for sale on their site, they did offer to send some replacement tires for the cars. When I received the replacements, they sent 1 pair per car, not even any spares. My concern is that this is going to be an ongoing issue, and a defect in the products. For the amount of money we've spent on these cars ($50 each) I don't feel the tires should have to be replaced via warranty every 6 months.
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I paid a good amount for a used and faulty kit!
by incredibleG (1 out of 5 stars)
March 19, 2019

I had first heard about this on a kid snippet. I thought it was a great idea, so I checked out the product. It looked pretty cool, so I had purchased it thinking that they were going to send me a new race kit (about $100). I was wrong. First of all, the box it came in looked like it had survived a nuclear warzone. I thought "Well, ok. It's just the packaging. The Overdrive inside is probably still good." When I found out it was a USED product, I was a little more upset. It was obviously taped back up, and all the contents inside were mangled and mismatched. It did not help that there were obvious spots on the track where something had spilled on them. I took it out, downloaded the app, and began to charge the cars. The cars both took less than 3 minutes to charge before it got the solid green light. It seemed weird they charged so fast. I set the cars down, and they had successfully scanned the track. I was just getting into my first race when Ground Shock lost battery and shot off the track. I tried to look at the support page of Anki, but I've tried everything they suggest. I decided to send it back. I'm not a person with Prime, so I expected this package for about a week. I'm kind of disappointed that Amazon would try to sell me a a used and faulty kit. I am ok if it is used, but at least do a background check if it is ok to even drive around. I am a customer who is no longer satisfied with this purchase.

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