Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. News

New OnePlus Snowbots let you control a snowball-throwing robot through 5G

Christian de Looper
By

OnePlus, like pretty much every other tech company out there, wants to demonstrate the power of 5G. But while other companies are doing so with screenshots of the speeds their phones can achieve, OnePlus is taking a different path. Yep, that’s right — with a 5G-equipped robot that can hurl snowballs at other robots via a simple internet portal.

The limited-time experience just launched, and you can check it out for yourself by heading to the Snowbot Battle page on your mobile device. To sign up, you will have to sign in to your OnePlus account, or create one if you don’t have one. It starts at 12 p.m. PT on Monday, March 9, and lasts for a hefty 70 hours — so it’ll end on March 12.

OnePlus Snowbots

Each user can play once, and you’ll basically control one robot in a team of two Snowbots. All you have to do is fire snowballs at the robots on the opposing team. You’ll only get eight snowballs, and to win you have to hit the enemy Snowbots more than they hit you.

Recommended Videos

It doesn’t seem as though you need a OnePlus device to join the fight either. OnePlus’ announcement says that anyone on any device from around the world can control the OnePlus Snowbots through the dedicated website. You will need a 5G connection or good Wi-Fi connection to control Snowbots, however.

Related

The Snowbots themselves are pretty interesting in terms of design. They’re built using a OnePlus phone mounted on the inside of each bot, which essentially functions as the eyes of the robot. Apart from that, the robots are connected to 5G, ensuring that you can control them with low latency.

OnePlus itself has launched a number of 5G-enabled phones. The first OnePlus 5G phone was the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, which was succeeded by the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G. It’s expected that most smartphone manufacturers will start including 5G-compatibility in their devices by default this year — so it’s possible that the standard model of the OnePlus 8 will offer 5G support.

Interested in checking out Snowbots for yourself? All you have to do is head over to the OnePlus Snowbots website and log in using your OnePlus account.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper
Contributor
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
If you like cheap phones, you’ll love these 2 new Moto G options
The Moto G Stylus 2023, standing upright on a couch, with its display turned on.

The budget smartphone market is a bustling space right now, with great phones from Nokia and Samsung making big waves. Motorola is the unofficial king of the budget smartphone, but its throne is looking quite shaky right now. That might be why it's decided to remix some classics this year, releasing new versions of the Moto G 5G and Moto G Stylus.

While there are definitely some improvements in the 2023 versions of both phones, Motorola has also made some cutbacks for both, making these new versions remixes of past classics rather than pure upgrades. Here's everything you need to know about the Motorola Moto G 5G (2023) and Moto G Stylus (2023).
Moto G 5G (2023)

Read more
Live in a rural area? Verizon 5G is about to get better for you
Verizon store front displays the 5G network in NYC.

Verizon plans to expand its faster 5G Ultra Wideband network to reach beyond urban and suburban centers later this year, helping to drive up performance for folks in rural areas and spearhead the growth of its fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband services.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestburg touched on these details this week in the company’s quarterly earnings call, where he lauded the rapid expansion of the carrier’s C-band coverage to reach 200 million people in just over a year “since we lit up the first site.”

Read more
T-Mobile’s 5G is still unmatched — but have speeds plateaued?
Woman holding up smartphone with speed test results on Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network.

Each time a new analysis of mobile network performance gets published, it’s almost a given that we’ll see T-Mobile leading the pack in terms of delivering the fastest 5G speeds. After all, the “Un-carrier” had a massive lead in deploying its 5G networks — and it hasn’t been resting on its laurels.

However, its competitors haven’t been sitting still either. While Verizon may have been starting from behind, it’s been aggressively deploying the faster 5G spectrum that gave it a nice leap in 5G performance last year. Still, Verizon and AT&T are lagging quite a bit in overall mobile network performance, and AT&T has fallen even farther behind when it comes to delivering the best 5G speeds across the nation.

Read more