Not so long ago this little guy was the most popular geek toy. The intelligent wi-fi rabbit that can be programmed using very basic API to read the news, e-mail messages, stream mp3 music, online radio and tell the weather, turned out to be a waste of money. Here is the deal. Violet company that makes nabaztag bunnies had a false flash demonstration on their website. If you visited nabaztag.com around June last year (or earlier), you would see the bunny happily streaming Internet radio, reading e-mails and sending messages to other nabaztag owners by voice. Also, one could see nabazatag reading children books, recognizing objects and much more cool stuff all thanks to RFID support which never became available. I got my bunny (led by on-site demo) last year (see earlier posts for details).
At the time people at Violet were promising RFID support. The bunny worked quite well on my Mac and I was happily toying around with it. There were some glitches with the bunny but nothing serious. Problems arrived in December last year when Violet announced that they are changing platform and switching to Jabber. That change should make the bunny work and respond faster. That hasn’t happened!
Users had to wait for months for Violet to officially roll out Jabber platform and when they finally did, it turns to be a total disaster. Truth is that Nabaztag is now quicker but it does not work as it used to anymore. The bloody thing now won’t go to sleep or wake up at scheduled times, read rss feeds regularly and sometimes even refuses to connect at all. I’d strongly advise anyone who is thinking of buying nabaztag now, to stay away from it. Not to mention that RFID support is still unavailable.
March 30, 2008 at 3:38 pm |
Wow, you delete comments ? Where are we here ? China ?
March 30, 2008 at 3:57 pm |
I never delete any comments on this blog. It could be system error so, if you think your comment has been deleted, feel free to re-post it.
Regards
March 31, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
I can anyway confirm that the Nabaztag really sucks. The “service” they pretend to deliver is constantly falling down and becoming buggy, it is TOTALLY unreliable.
A good advise ? DON’T EVER BUY A NABAZTAG !!!!!
April 13, 2008 at 9:53 pm |
I afraid I’m inclined to agree. Things just aren’t improving on Violet’s end, and it’s really disappointing.
The concept is awesome, the execution is dismal.
June 4, 2008 at 3:43 pm |
Yep. My poor bunny is sitting in his box. What a waste of $200… I’m worried Violet will go under and he’ll never have any sort of functionality.
July 8, 2008 at 2:28 pm |
I feel your pain.
July 13, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
I think the Nabaztag will comeback in September 2008, when violet publish the Nabaztag Source .
July 28, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
Frankie, where do you see any announcement about the Nabaztag source being released?
August 4, 2008 at 10:58 pm |
I’m sick of Violet’s promises. These french guys are just ignorant of us customers. My geeky rabbit is not reliable at all, don’t by one if you want to wake up on time or need to be informed on server status or on the stock market. If you have money to spend, better give it to a charity organization.
October 3, 2008 at 8:28 am |
are you crazy?
i’m in LOVE with my bunny!!!
nabaztag/tag
I recive (no lag) voice messages, texts, music and mp3 perfectly in time, via mail, widget for mac os x, or via official site
i can control the ears of the bunny via widgets.
i bought 3 nabaztag tag for my girlfriend and friends and all the day there is a mess of messages, lights and stupid funny things
the clock works perectly, alarms and delayed messages…and perfectly in time my bunny “go to bed” as i set!
i haven’t tested Rss yet, but i’m not so interested in this service… i prefer to READ work mail and rss on my laptop
FOR ME the nabaztag is very funny, cool and well done!
NO BUGS FOUND!
(my personal experience)
October 5, 2008 at 9:12 pm |
Well, I just switched my nab/tab back again, after a hiatus of several months, and I must say that it seems that things are getting better again, now.
We came at a point where my bunny didn’t go to sleep, did not wake up, lost messages and kept playing radio after the due timetable. It was a complete mess. Thus, after a few months of great fun, I had to shut it down. I blamed wifi interference, and I promised myself to put it back to business as soon as I found a better spot.
However, as I said, I turned it on again two days ago, and it seems that thing work again.
Well, I am happy of this, if it stays this way.
October 18, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
We jut got our nab/tab yesterday (gift), so far the experience has been very challenging. Some of the issues are:
1. The rabbit is not reading updates from the the RSS feeds,
2. Podcast emailed in MP3 format to the rabbit has not been read out loud, and
3. The alarm clock has not worked with any reliability.
Any suggestion to get these things worked out will be appreciated.
October 19, 2008 at 8:50 am |
@Sowmya:
All of what you said are server issues and there is nothing (or very little) you can do about it. You can try and reset your bunny to see if thats gonna make it any better.
October 28, 2008 at 1:58 am |
Hi Davor
Good article, thanks.
I arrived at this site because I was very interested in getting the rabbit and so I do my reserach. Actually my only want is to have the rabbit notify me of incoming new mail so that I don’t have to sit in front of the computer….. however it seems to me that this is really a 2 years old product and they don’t sell it here in Hong Kong anymore… so perhaps I shouldn’t spend any mroe time trying to get it….
anyhow, any other gadget that serve my purpose (e-mail notification) you would recommend?
so far I only managed to find a light box that would light up when there’s new mail
October 28, 2008 at 10:15 am |
Hi V
Thank you for reading my blog. As for your question, you can try Chumby or Tux Druid. Chumby is a little wi-fi gadget that displays rss feeds, images from flicker (on a built-in screen) and other useful stuff. Tux Droid on the other hand is nabaztag-like wi-fi toy that can do similar things nabaztag can and has some additional features too. Both gadgets are capable of e-mail notification. As I don’t own either, I can’t tell you how well the gadgets really are. I’ve heard however that chumby is a nice little toy.
Chumby: http://www.chumby.com
Tux Druid: http://www.tuxisalive.com
Hope this helps
November 3, 2008 at 2:43 pm |
So, I would’ve been one of those people posting about how positive my experiences have been with Nabaztag…
BUT:
My rabbit sees to have died about a week ago and just doesn’t want to work anymore. If I unplug and then plug him in he goes through the connection sequence and gets to a point where all green lights are on… and then either stays that way or shows me a full set of red lights and sits there doing nothing.
Is this likely to be a hardware thing? a software thing? should I reset? how do I reset?
It’s a shame that those less-than-all-there people at Violet don’t seem to realise what a fantastic chance they are screwing up with this product.
Right now, I agree with you entirely…
Thanks for any suggestions,
Robert
November 13, 2008 at 8:07 pm |
me again… my rabbit is alive again – and the support people at Violet proved to be extremely responsive, even offering to attempt a remote resuscitation
I hereby take back my words of criticism 
Take yours out of the box and try again!
November 26, 2008 at 11:49 am |
well, i had to rebox my poor bunny a while ago due to the problems mentioned in the good article above. after issues playing radio all day ect, he wouldnt connect and just sat there.
then i saw him and felt sorry (for the money my boyf spent!) and tried again. and he works! sort of. lights ect fine, but NO SOUND. odd. have emailed the help team and will let you know…
November 30, 2008 at 11:03 pm |
How do you get in touch with support. I’ve been sending emails and I get no response. Is there a phone number? Monica
December 1, 2008 at 8:17 am |
Hi Monica
You can contact Violet by using a contact form at: http://help.nabaztag.com/index.php?langue=3&type=1
or via e-mail: support@violet.net
Good luck
December 10, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
This is interesting. I’ve been pondering about getting one for a while now. I think I’ll wait another few months, and see how support is going for everyone else’s rabbit. Thanks for the heads up!
December 23, 2008 at 7:50 am |
Hrmmm. I really am interested in getting this awesome rabbit, but this article and some other factors bother me. The first is of course the age of the device. I figure if I wait til after CES 2009 that they will come out with a new rabbit. But if they dont, maybe i will spring for this. It seems to be buggy at times for yall, yet i cant deny the awesomeness it seems to possess when it works right.
Seems like most of the issues with Jabber have been ironed out. I really need to figure out if a new Nabaztag is on the way though before i spend over $150 bucks. Any helps would be appreciated. And it sucks that some of yall are having intermittent issues with your toy.
December 27, 2008 at 4:46 pm |
Hello – Sorry to say that since I got my Nabaztag:tag I have not manage to get it to do half of the things it should be able to do….
The new site (i do not know how new it is) – but anyway – basic thing like email checking does not work (home page say that my object does not support email???!!!!)
I thougt that I might get arround this with the very nice API possibliities… but there are no API possiblities!!! since you can not activate this anymore via the settings page!!! -
I hope the support people at Nagaztag come back with some good answers soon….
December 30, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
I have also just reconnected my NabazTag/tag now after months of keeping it offine because of serveral issues mentioned here! I have managed to get it back working fully. If you are interested in how I got it to work, see http://nafcom.blogspot.com/2008/12/troubleshoot-nabaztag-nabaztagtag.html
Also the RFID ability promised since years is here now! It’s called Mir:or: and it works! once programmed the zstamps also work on the NabazTag/Tag! I just ordered mine yesterday! http://nafcom.blogspot.com/2008/12/nabaztag-can-rfid-now.html