Sphero released the Star Wars BB-8 app-controlled droid toy in 2015.
The rolling BB-8 was developed by Sphero in partnership with Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company. Its design reproduced the spherical body and independently moving head seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Users controlled the droid through a smartphone or tablet application.
The toy became one of the most prominent pieces of merchandise connected with The Force Awakens. It used a gyroscope-based drive system and could roll across smooth surfaces while its head stayed magnetically attached to the body. A common mix-up is to call BB-8 a Hasbro toy, because Hasbro also sold many Star Wars products. Sphero, however, was the company behind the electronic rolling version. Sphero later produced other programmable educational robots, but the Star Wars BB-8 helped make the company widely known to consumers.