Review: WowWee Wrex the Dawg

Written on Feb 1, 2009 by Thomas S. and filed under Reviews, WowWee

Wrex the Dawg from WowWee is a robotic junkyard dog designed to entertain kids with many playful modes and controlled with a colorful junkyard inspired remote. This playful guard dog has mood swings, breakdown modes where you can fix him, and can even be programmed to play back a long set of moves. Wrex can “see” in front of him to handle guard dog duties with motion sensors which also help locate borders to a room. Designed for kids 8 and up, Wrex the Dawg can entertain for hours (or until the batteries run out).

How Wrex Works

To simulate a real personality and to move about, Wrex the Dawg is loaded with infrared sensors, 9 motors, and internal speakers that let him move around in a life-like way. Depending on the mood or function he is in, he can move his ears, tail (which squeaks like a dog toy when pinched), front and rear legs, head and neck, jaw, and even spin his eyes like a slot machine to show his current mode. Many of his moves are designed to mimic moves of a real dog (including going to the bathroom), well everything except walking. Instead of four individual legs and feet, Wrex uses wheels.

You can control Wrex through buttons on his body, a secret repair panel on his back, and the remote which can set his various moods and control commands. Smaller children might not understand the more complex features controlled through the remote, but the controls are simple enough that random button mashing can provide some entertaining results.

Wrex is powered off of 4 C and 2 AA batteries housed in his belly and the remote uses 3 AAA batteries. Considering his size and number of motors, I might have preferred D-sized batteries for the main motor functions to last longer. Another option would have been a rechargeable battery, but it would have increased cost. Battery life if used heavily would be rated as a day or two tops before you need to swap in new main batteries. A set of quality NiMH rechargeable batteries would be a wise investment.

What Do Kids Think?

Younger kids, 6 and under, generally found Wrex more fun, since it was a very active play toy that could make seemingly random movements with exciting bright lights. They also really enjoyed just watching Wrex as older kids or parents operated the controls. Wrex is designed for older kids though and in our test set of kids 8 and up, we found they wanted to control Wrex by driving him around a room but quickly found out that remote controlled car-type action is not how he works. They also expected voice controls, since Wrex is a dog and all. Incidentally WowWee is adding voice commands to some of their 2009 lineup. All told, Wrex really didn’t hold the interest of older kids the way we thought he would, but younger kids still found him very entertaining. 

Fun for Adults?

I love playing with new gadgets and toys, so the playing with a robotic dog was something else. Working with Wrex was difficult at first, before I turned to the instruction manual for some help. Some of the functions on the remote are not labeled in a way that would be easily recognized, such as the function knob with items listed as “1-6” without icons or descriptions. One example is knowing that having Wrex in the Happy mode, knob pointing at one, and pressing the green button means “Shakes a Paw”. Simpler functions such as eating shows an image of a dog bone, which is a bit easier to understand. I think a guide printed on the back of the remote might have helped, instead of only a table inside the instruction manual.

Trying to drive Wrex around the room to bark at people proved to be quite a challenge, maneuvering him around rugs and other obstacles that might stop him in his tracks. The best environment for Wrex is probably an open hard-pile carpet play room where the wheels can spin easier and with few obstacles that would limit his range of movement.

Wrex Limitations

Wrex doesn’t really like driving around like a remote controlled car. The movement is very imprecise, with loose front wheels that make him drift to the side instead of in a straight line (this is by design). Trying to aim him to a different part of the room can be difficult with so many corrections. Many of the commands are also delayed, such as moving straight; sometimes he continues to move for a bit after you release the button. And a single button press makes Wrex take that action until another button is pressed or the stop button is hit. So if you press right turn, he’ll spin around and around until you tell him to stop or do something else.

Obstacles like barriers between carpet and hard flooring can block his movement, and some rougher surfaces limit how much he can move around. In my house Wrex moved very slow across my carpeted living room, but moved 2-3 times faster over my smooth kitchen floor. He does have a sensor and will redirect well, but it’s a few inches off the ground, so he won’t manouver around low barriers like a shoe or toy on the floor. 

One missing feature that would have been awesome is voice commands, as being a dog this is one of the first things you might expect. Both kids and parents agree it would have been a great feature, even if it was only listening for very basic commands.

Advanced Features

Wrex likes to be taught new tricks through his programming mode which stores up to 80 moves to be played back at a later time. Inside the program mode you select actions just as you would normally, but after each one Wrex gives a confirmation to let you know that step has been saved. One program example would be having him move forward 5 times, spin, bark and play dead, spin again, and move 5 times forward to try and return to his original position. You can’t really program super complex moves (it is a kid’s toy after all) but it is a fun feature.

Bottom Line

Wrex the Dawg by WowWee turned out to be a pretty fun toy to play around with, for both children and adults. Wrex mimicked real motion very well with the array of servos and motors and sounded lifelike with the internal speakers. It did have some flaws with the overall driving control which made some older kids who wanted to drive it around disappointed. Most of this is caused by the fact that it isn’t a remote controlled car, but a robotic dog that slides around on its front paws. Younger kids loved the random movement and personality, so don’t think the 8+ rule is a hard limit. In the end I think Wrex turned out to be a friendly battery-eating robot which for its price had plenty of features. There’s also a lot of potential for parent/child combo play which we think is valuable. 

3.5 out of 5 Stars

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