Ask HN: Has Anyone Modded the BB-Unit from Disneyland Galaxy's Edge?

I find myself in possession of one of the build-your-own BB-8 units from the Star Wars Galaxy's Edge "Droid Depot".

It seems like it is basically a 1st-party replacement for the older licenced Sphero BB-8, except really big (~10 inches high), and reacts to bluetooth beacons scattered around the theme park.

https://secure.cdn1.wdpromedia.com/dam/disneyland/shops/disneyland/droid-depot/BB-8-Instruction-Sheet-064019.pdf

I'm curious if anyone has attempted to mod/hack this? It has a number of inconveniences:

- It has a physical bluetooth remote, but I'd love to be able to pair it to a smartphone app instead.

- It runs on a stack of AA batteries, rather than having a built-in battery with induction charging.

- It goes into a power-save mode after 5 minutes of inactivity, and seemingly the only way to wake it back up is to crack it open and flip the powerswitch off/on again.

- The magnets attaching the head are fairly weak, and the head flies off even on pretty gentle impacts.

It's a little underwhelming as is, so I'd love suggestions on (relatively simple) mods that would improve it.

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octorian 6y ago ↗

I built the R-series unit at the Droid Depot last week, actually. Just today I've finally started to poke at the bluetooth/BLE stuff with it.

Apparently, once powered up, it broadcasts a repeating advertisement packet of some sort. Beyond that, I'm too new to attempted bluetooth tinkering to figure much out.

One thing I'd love to do, is figure out how to mimic this advertisement (like a nearby droid). Even more so, I'd love to be able to mimic the BLE beacons that are supposedly scattered around Galaxy's Edge that the droid may react to. Of course I'm not going to have the opportunity to return to Disneyland with a BLE sniffer enabled phone anytime soon.