OnePlus is a company that has always wanted to focus on innovation, well aware that the latter can bring significant risks. However, the game can be worth the candle, since only those who have patience can win it in the long run. In these days of forced "enclosure" we tried the Snowbot Battle, very particular initiative organized by OnePlus.
We are talking about a battle between snowball robots, physically located in Ruka (Finland), but controllable in real time from all over the world through a simple Internet connection. The goal of the initiative was to test the potential of 5G, given that the robots were managed by OnePlus smartphones equipped with this connectivity. A test that was ambitious already on paper, but this is precisely the reason that prompted us to participate. Let's see how it went together, between light and shadow.
The OnePlus Snowbot Battle, an intriguing idea
It all started on March 1, 2020, when OnePlus decided to reveal on its social channels the desire to make a mysterious announcement. The images were very vague and practically no one had managed to understand what they were referring to. The Chinese company then intervened in our "rescue", issuing a press release that invited us to the Snowbot Battle, an event in which users from all over the world could challenge each other in a battle of snow-covered robots managed by 5G technology , connectivity that can bring enormous benefits regarding latency (therefore on paper it is possible to control the robots without too much input lag).
The games took place two against two, two red robots (Avalanche team) against two blue robots (Frostbite team), and obstacles were present in the middle of the battlefield (for example, cute snowmen). The maximum speed at which snowballs could be fired was 120 km / h. The company had also published guides to learn how to play and videos behind the scenes (apparently the community was also physically involved).
If you are wondering why OnePlus had decided to organize such an event, the answer comes from the initial press release: "When controlling robots in real time through 5G, the device's camera OnePlus 5G works exactly like the eyes of the robot, allowing the user to see the target and aim with an accuracy of 1mm"In short, we are talking about an interesting test related to 5G.
You could simply participate through your OnePlus account: just connect via browser to the site created for the occasion and wait for your turn in the queue. Each was theoretically entitled to one game, so that the others could play as well.
Here the first problems began: the Snowbot Battle was initially scheduled to start on March 10, 2020 at 13:00 and the games were expected to continue 24 hours a day until March 12. This in live steaming, so that everyone can enjoy the event. Too bad that, in the "highlight", continuous postponements began, before a few hours and then several days.
In the end, the weekend arrived. Saturday 14 March 2020 was supposed to be the big day, but when the 22:00 event didn't even start, many users decided to let go. The reasons that caused all these postponements have never been communicated too directly by OnePlus, but between one social channel and another we were able to guess that it was a mixture of weather conditions (Finland is not exactly the most "hospitable" of the world) e Technical Problems (apparently, the infrastructure created for live streaming did not work properly, but also that of the robots had several headaches).
To give you concrete examples, there were people who signaled that they had been in the queue for hours and that they had never been able to enter, while others had stopped shortly before the start of their shift. In any case, in general, among all those who were present on the official European forum, as of March 14, 2020 no one had yet managed to play.
The company had even had to publish a short video recorded via a OnePlus smartphone to show the playing field up close (the robots are much smaller than they appear in the photo) and to show that someone had finally managed to play a few "games" ".
We arrived on Sunday 15 March 2020 now convinced that we would never be able to control our robot from Italy. However, we didn't lose heart and decided to try again. Well, to our amazement, after hours and hours of queuing (yes, at that point it had become a matter of principle), we finally managed to get into the game. Initially we thought that nothing would work, as the video upload icon had appeared in the center of the screen. However, after skipping the "warm up" due to this problem, the game has loaded.
There we found all the limits of the case: as you can see from the video above, to say that the Snowbot Battle was jerky is an understatement. However, thanks to a huge stroke of luck, the writer managed to correctly target the opponent, probably stopped due to problems such as those reported by this user, and won by 51 to 0. During the game, we tried to move towards the 'other robot that was on the right, but the lag and the limited time (1:30 minutes per game) did not even allow us to aim it. What matters is that we unexpectedly won a game with the Snowbots.
For a sort of bug, the game then put us back in the queue and we managed to enter the game for a second time. In this case, as you can see from the video, everything started in the best way: the controls and the video were much more fluid and the robot responded to our commands in relatively little time, despite the fact that there was still a little input lag.
It seemed the perfect opportunity, even the opponent was moving: however, just when we started shooting snowballs at us, our screen went black and we couldn't play anymore. From there the queue didn't work anymore and we didn't have the chance to play other games. As mentioned above, similar problems have also been encountered by many other players on the dedicated forum, so it's not just a coincidence. Also, as of this writing, live streaming has never aired.
In short, the event did not go exactly in the best way and who knows if OnePlus will be able to make everything work as it should (the Chinese company has already extended the initiative several times, so we cannot know if there will be other sessions, but we wish OnePlus to be able to solve everything). In any case, this story has been interesting for several reasons. First of all, we managed, more or less, to control robots in Finland directly from Italy and hit a target. Without 5G we probably would never have been able to do it.
Secondly, this initiative allowed us to take a brief look at what could happen in the future thanks to the aforementioned new connectivity standard. Imagine, when everything works properly, to be able to participate in Snowbot tournaments and much more simply from the browser of your smartphone. Ultimately, OnePlus has perhaps made the longest step of the leg with this first Snowbot Battle, but we must admit that, despite everything, that hit was a pleasant experience. We can therefore not do that good luck to the Chinese company, who in the future could become one of the pioneers in this complex field. The first step was taken: we were there.
