KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car review – fun but flawed

REVIEW – If you’ve ever driven a 500+ horsepower car, you know that you’re a sneeze away from a dangerous and/or expensive wreck without skill and concentration. A few years ago I spun out a rented Dodge Challenger with a track kit on the streets of Las Vegas and luckily all I damaged was my pride. Maybe you also have the itch to race, but aren’t comfortable with that kind of danger? KOBOTIX might have just what you’re looking for in their KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car! 

What is it?

The KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car is a small RC (remote controlled) car. Previously you could stream a “first person view” from the camera built into the car on your phone or tablet (or even in a headset viewer that uses your phone as the screen). They’ve just added a Meta Quest 3 app that lets you get even deeper into the fantasy of driving your own race car by simulating a virtual cockpit and letting you control the car with VR controllers. 

What’s included?

• Real Racer Car
• 2.4 Ghz Pistol Grip Controller
• Rechargeable Li-Po Battery Pack
• FPV Headset
• Battery Charger
• Instruction Manual
• Mini Screwdriver

Tech specs

Design and features

There are two color choices on KOBOTIX’s site for the KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car: Royal Blue and Lava Red. They send me the red one, and I think it looks great. Besides the camera hump up top, it’s a pretty sporty looking little car. The exterior is plastic, and they even sell other color shells like Stealth Black and Cosmic Silver. 

From the side profile you can see how prominent that camera hump is, as well as how the wheels are secured by a standard Phillips screw (though they are small ones, the included mini screwdriver will work to replace them if needed). 

On the bottom you can see the battery access panel and the on/off switch. The battery panel is secured by a small screw, which keeps it safe and secure but means you need to keep track of that small screwdriver and deal with the hassle of a screw every time you want to recharge the car. 

The car is just under 6 inches long, and is pretty light as well. 

There are no external LEDs, I wish that the car at least had red rear lights and LED headlights – you could then drive in darker rooms and more easily see opponents if you get 2+ of these to race with friends or family. 

The included headset feels light and cheapish, but not so much so as to easily break. The straps stay securely on your head, and the optics are good enough to race with, though after testing it for a few laps with an iPhone 13 I was happy to take it off and stow it in the box to never be used again. 

The padding was comfortable, and the phone stayed securely in place. 

Dials adjust the placement of the phone, which is held in a cradle in front of your eyes while in use. If you’re getting this to race in FPV mode though, you’ll want to skip the headset and go straight to a Meta Quest headset if you can. 

The included 2.4 Ghz controller is good, I found it to be responsive and had no issues controlling the car this way – I’m used to this style of controller from multiple other RC vehicle reviews now. 

Up top you have steering and throttle trim controls, side buttons to take photos or videos (onto a micro-SD card-not included), and a big red power button. 

Assembly, Installation, Setup

The charger is a USB-A charger, with an LED light to indicate charging status.

The battery itself had an issue the first time I went to unplug the charger: the darker red plastic piece in the photo above pulled out of the battery housing so I was tugging directly on the wires themselves. Luckily I realized that before yanking them out completely and it still works, but I have to be careful now to grip the darker red piece when attaching/detaching the connecting wire. This will render the car unusable if I kill this battery, and replacements don’t seem to be available on their website. 

Performance

For all of the flaws mentioned thus far in my review, I did still have a blast doing the actual drive testing of the KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car. I started by just driving around the house with the included 2.4 Ghz remote, and it’s a great little indoor RC car with appropriate speed and turning for typical rooms in a suburban house, though you can get similar RC cars for much cheaper if you don’t care about the FPV capabilities. 

I then tried out the app on iOS and with the included headset (again using iOS with the phone in the headset). Both worked without hiccups, though I didn’t find the headset experience to be very immersive or comfortable. The lag wasn’t bad, but it was just perceptible enough to prevent racing with fast reactions on an impromptu course I set up. I then tried out the XR experience on my Meta Quest 3. The video below shows the setup process and then a couple of laps of testing, with video of the car itself driving around at the end. If you want to skip the app setup just jump to the 1:00 mark for the actual driving:

As you can see, KOBOTIX did a good job of creating a fun car interior that you interact with and added sound effects for the engine to give you audio feedback on how much throttle you’re giving the car.  You can steer with the 2.4 Ghz remote or with Meta Quest controllers (you “grip” the virtual wheel in front of you and steer by turning), and the view ahead is a low-latency FPV view from the car. This seemed like there was less lag than with the iOS app, but it did suffer from repeated drops in image quality and artifacts and error messages saying that Wi-Fi was poor. The car was doing this at a distance of 8 feet or less from me, so Wi-Fi stability doesn’t seem to be the best. In my tight (and cluttered) office, I did have to start and stop and even make some 3 point turns, but it was still a lot of fun.

That said, the process of getting the car and headset out, setting up a track of sorts, starting up the VR app, connecting to the car, and finally driving for a maximum of about 20 minutes (I never got more than 20 even though they advertise up to 25) felt like a lot of work for a little fun. The barrier to entry is just high enough that I doubt I’ll pull it out very often in the future. If I had a second car to race against family or friends, it might be a different story. 

What I like about the Real Racer XR

• Pretty low latency on Meta Quest 3
• Good size and speed for indoor use
• Racing in VR is fun, the included controller is good as well

What needs to be improved?

• Battery connector quickly popped out – I worry about this failing
• An external USB-C charger on the car would be MUCH better – and/or USB-C on the battery packs themselves
• Battery compartment needs a small screwdriver to remove that would be easy to lose
• Extra batteries aren’t available on the website at time of review
• Poor video streaming performance, even at close range

Final thoughts

While I had fun reviewing the KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car, by the end of it I can tell it’s one of those gadgets that I’ll rarely take the time to pull out and set up – it’s just enough of a hassle that it will deter me from future sessions unless nieces or nephews want to drive it. Even then, the maximum 20 minutes runtime I am getting means that at family gatherings each kid will only get a few minutes if we want to give them all a turn. I like all of the ideas that Kobotix is going for with this RC car system, and it probably makes more sense for a someone with more time or passion for creating indoor race tracks and then driving them. The battery issues are also worrying to me – I could see the cables pulling out and stripping from inside the battery itself, which will render the whole car unusable until I order a new one. If the idea of driving around your home or apartment in FPV view in a little race car is on your wishlist though, you should probably check out the KOBOTIX Real Racer XR RC car!

Price: $150
Where to buy: Kobotix and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Kobotix. Kobotix did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.