On the bench
We are not going to pretend this set is about motor skills. It is the most effective thing on our bench, it costs somebody their morning, and the cockroach is the one that does it.
Five printed shells, one twitching movement and a prank that has cost people their morning. Kids who like the idea more than the toys spread these through a house rather than race them. Two button cells are included and swap out in seconds when a bug slows down.
There is no remote, no remote control and no lights on these — they move on button cells and a crawling twitch, which is all the illusion needs. Experimenting is about placement: a bath, a worktop, the turn of a stair. Friends with a glow-in-the-dark bot will say the dark helps; here it does not, and the cells are not endless either.
It sits on the nano bots shelf, in among the rest of the HEX BOTS robotic toys, so it went through the same yardstick as every other bot there before it got a card here.
Numbers our mechanic logged
Sizes, cells and surfaces below are what came off the bench; the ages are the maker’s call, not ours.
- ControlOne switch, runs itself
- Power2 LR44 cells, included
- FloorHard floors and worktops
- Ages8 to 10 and up
- ShelfNano Bots
Who plays with it, and what stands next to it
Customers are honest about why they buy this one, and so are we: it is a prank set. The play is hiding them, not racing them, and the twitching movement does the rest. The printed design is close enough to the real thing that the fun lands on the first try, it is cool in a horrible way, and as a gift it says something about the person giving it.
For the same drive without the insect finish, the six-pack of street-art nanos runs on identical cells. Climbing walls is the gecko crawlers' shelf, and one of those glows in the dark.
Getting it, swapping it
Delivery, tracking, swaps and warranty claims are handled on the order page of the store you bought from — they hold the order, we hold the bench. Read how we split that in Doorstep & swaps.
The instructions in the box run to one sheet; our charge and care guide covers cells, run life and storage between runs. Surfaces and charging questions come to bench@hexbots.pages.dev, Mon to Fri, 9am to 6pm ET.
