GoGo Robots Selfie Stick review

I’ll admit that when the opportunity to review the GoGo Robots Selfie Stick, I didn’t know what to expect. I think that I missed the “selfie” generation, and have never quite understood the phenomena, but I have a 19 year old son who seems to take selfies all of the time.  According to Amazon.com’s Web site, the GoGo Robots selfie stick is the #1 selling selfie stick.  For the purpose of this review, I will assume that this is true. 

The idea of a selfie stick is straightforward.  The goal is to be able to place a smartphone farther away from the subjects to allow for more people to be included in the picture than could be fit by merely holding the phone out with your arm.  If anyone remembers the Oscars a few years ago, Ellen DeGenneres made the Twitterverse explode with her selfie that she took with a huge group of celebrities trying to get in the frame.  I believe her selfie was one of the most tweeted pictures yet.  If she had a selfie stick, she would have likely been able to include dozens more in her picture.

The GoGo Robots Selfie Stick comes with a very short micro-USB charging cable and connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth.  The item comes with an instructions manual the size of a postage stamp that simply instructs you on pairing the item with your smartphone.  The rest, you have to figure out.  There is not much to a selfie stick.  There are basically three parts to it.  There is the handle, which in this case, includes the power switch, the charging jack, and the remote shutter release button in easy reach when you hold it, the extendable shaft that goes from 8” to 42”, and the bracket to place your smartphone in.

Using the GoGo Robots Selfie Stick is a simple process, which is great.  After charging it, you ensure that Bluetooth is enabled on your smartphone, and you turn the stick on. My iPhone 6+ found the selfie stick right away. Then you place your phone in the bracket.  Now the bracket itself expands easily and there is a clip on the top part to expand to hold a wider phone. Then you just need to adjust the bracket to point your phone in the direction you want.  There are several adjusting controls to move the bracket in any way you want.  Extending the bracket from the handle is easy and when closed, becomes very simple to carry in a bag.  In the photo below, you can see the micro-USB charging port and the on/off switch.

In the below photo, you can see the remote shutter release button, which is comfortably located on the handle about one inch below the shaft, within easy reach of your thumb.

There is no doubt that with the GoGo Robots Selfie Stick your selfies can definitely include more people, and it is easy to set up and use.

In the below photo, you can see how it looks with my iPhone 6+ in the docking cradle.

Note that as I discovered, make sure that when you insert your phone, you do not have the orange, adjustable clamp over your phone’s camera button (on the iPhone 6+, these include both the volume up and the volume down buttons), otherwise, you will end up taking lots of unwanted photos.

For reference, below are several photos I took of myself and my son using the GoGo Robots Selfie Stick.  These photos used the selfie stick at the minimum, medium and full range of the metal shaft.

My issues are more generic.  When you put your smartphone away from you, you cannot adjust your zoom, and of course, the quality of your selfie is limited by the quality of your smartphone’s front-facing camera.

Sample provided by GoGo Robots.  Please see their web site for additional information or Amazon to order.