Customer reviews from shop.mattel.com
Hot Wheels - Hot Wheels id Smart Track Starter Kit - ORANGE
Average customer rating
4.2
(20 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 20 reviews
5 Stars
13
4 Stars
3
3 Stars
1
2 Stars
1
1 Star
2
89%of customers recommend this product.
(
17 out of
19)
Customer Reviews for Hot Wheels - Hot Wheels id Smart Track Starter Kit - ORANGE
Customer Rating
5
Great track!
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: Hutch_ka
from De Leon Springs, FL
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] We received this for free as part of the play, rate, review program. The track came with missing pieces. After contacting Mattel and about two weeks later we received the missing pieces. The track is great and very heavy duty compared to other tracks. My boys liked that you can build the track in many different ways. It is easy to connect it to the app and scan cars. There are a lot of challenges or free play in the app. My boys loved playing with this. The only problem is sometimes the cars come off the track even if you don’t red line it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
5
Physical meets virtual
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: PolkaDotMan
from Chicago, IL, United States
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Hot Wheels ID is an interesting concept in which physical vehicles interact with the digital world. Does this combination work? The answer is a resounding yes.
The Smart Track Starter Kit comes with everything you need to begin your digital interaction. There are five pieces of rigid track and a pump accelerator that can be combined in a variety of ways to make racing ovals or drag strips. The track connects easily and my 8-year old son was able to put together multiple configurations by himself. The pump on the accelerator can be pressed repeatedly to increase the speed of any vehicle that passes through it. There is a Bluetooth-enabled portal that is inserted into the accelerator that relays performance statistics to a digital application installed on a phone or tablet. The kit comes with three NFC-enabled cars that the portal recognizes and unlocks in the application.
Once assembled, using it is a breeze. Install the Hot Wheels ID application on your device, press a button on the portal to connect it, and you are ready to go. The application uses sensors on the tracks to automatically recognize your track configuration and displays it on screen. Place a vehicle on the portal and the application automatically adds it to your digital garage. Give the accelerator a few pumps, send the vehicle through it, and statistics automatically update for the vehicle in the app. But be careful! Too many pumps and the accelerator redlines, which typically sends any car passing through it flying off the track. Having a backstop, such as cardboard or pillows, to catch airborne vehicles will prevent having to hunt for cars that yearn to be planes. The accelerator includes a gauge that uses two colors to show how fast the engine is turning. Blue is good; red is bad. It is pretty easy to enter the red danger zone. But with repeated use, my son quickly developed a rhythm that allowed him to send a car around an oval with a loop more than twenty times without an accident.
The app is a key part of this scenario. As already mentioned, it tracks each vehicle’s performance. But it also offers virtual racing for recognized vehicles on predefined tracks. You steer the vehicles by touching onscreen left/right arrows. If you beat the virtual opponents, you earn digital rewards. The app also includes challenges for each vehicle that can be accomplished by playing with the vehicle on the track. For example, complete 20 (scale) miles on the track with a car. When you complete a challenge, you earn more rewards. After accumulating enough rewards, you can spend them on upgrading the versions of the cars in your garage to improve their digital performance. These upgrades only apply to the virtual racing in the app; the physical vehicle remains unchanged.
My son loves playing with it with the whole family. He gets to send the car around the track. I get to be the pit crew chief, monitoring the app and relaying the numbers to him. His mother gets to manually count the laps, apparently to double-check the app statistics. I have often seen him stopping while walking by the track to give it a few pumps and send the cars racing along. He would like a setup that allows simultaneous side-by-side racing as he likes to go against me head-to-head. However, we just take turns to see who can do better.
Finally, I have noticed that the portal is not entirely accurate. Just putting a vehicle on the portal would occasionally show up as a completed lap for an app challenge when the car had not actually gone anywhere. But this is a toy designed for fun. I doubt a regulatory licensing agency is going to knock on my door and make me produce records confirming the recorded data.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
5
Hours of fun!
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: RNtwins
from Dallas, TX, United States
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I am so happy we got this race track. All three of my children loved this toy which does not happen very often. I even caught my husband racing cars by himself. We were able to get 4 cars racing at a time. The children had fun trying to predict which cars would go the fastest around the track. I do recommend you make sure you have plenty of room around the track since we had several cars go flying off the track since they were going too fast. The kids loved the interaction with the app and kept trying to beat their previous score. This race track is easy to set up and use. My children played with it for more than one day. I highly recommended it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
4
Fun technology
on August 18, 2020
Posted by: JulieP86
from Sammamish, WA, United States
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] We received the Hot Wheels id smart track through the play, rate and review program. It is exciting for kids to see their hot wheels come to life through their phone and to play challenges. Two of the three cars have a little trouble staying on the track, while the other one can do lap after lap.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
5
This track set is awesome!
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: JK1113
from Seven Fields, PA
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Wow. This set is absolutely amazing! There is seriously nothing to dislike about this. What a great development for Hot Wheels. The track-to-app-and-back features are so much fun and it's really cool to see the blueprints of the track that is being built.
The smart tracks are amazingly sturdy, but I love that there is a separate dock you can use to connect the portal with regular Hot Wheels tracks as well if you want to (since the id tracks are built differently and connect with USB to link to the app)! However, there are also adapters to connect the smart track to the standard track if you want to still use the smart tracks. The possibilities of track setup are endless with the adapters since you can use all the tracks you already have, plus the smart tracks, to make really cool setups. The launcher can be connected to standard track with the adapters, too, or left with the id portal and smart tracks. I was concerned at first that we wouldn't be able to connect them to the tracks we already had, but Mattel thought of that, too, and it's a game changer. The standard tracks don't appear on the app on the blueprints section since they're not digitally connected, but it's still fun to play with and connect.
Speaking of the app, oh man is there a ton to do! My daughter has been playing with the track for hours to unlock and upgrade her cars on the app! There are building challenges/campaigns, races, upgrading your cars, it goes on for awhile! Side note for parents: Just an fyi--there is a shop where you can buy items for upgrades.
There are so many positives with this track, and she (7) has been having so much fun with it! She has been having a lot of fun just watching the cars continuously go around (with her controlling it, of course).
The only downside we've experienced is that sometimes we launch the cars right off the track! This thing has a *lot* of power. The booster is fantastic! Gone are the days of rubber band launches for us (okay, maybe we'll keep using those sometimes--we don't have a different booster). This thing can go fast--or slow-- if you only pump it once. My kid loves that she can control the speed they go by pumping more or less. It doesn't take many pumps to get to max speed though, which is great, and it's really easy to press. It's a little bit loud, but it's to be expected when you're ramping up for a big launch. Oh, and she likes that any of the hot wheels cars we have can be launched from it (most of what we have are the standard track cars), so she's also not limited to the cars that come with the set for those tracks.
I absolutely love this set. It is really cool. Everyone in this house agrees that it's one of the coolest Hot Wheels sets that we have seen/played with. I hope we'll be able to buy extra track at some point that could connect to the app for the smart track free play and blueprint purposes, but until then, we'll definitely be connecting it to our other track pieces.
So, it's really awesome, but man does it have a lot of power and make sure you're not near anything that the cars would hurt in case you launch them right off the track on one of the curves--it definitely happened more than once! We would definitely recommend it in this house!
I would recommend this to a friend!
(click to see the video)
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
5
Lots of Fun!!!
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: lalu
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This race track is so much fun! Very well constructed and I was surprised how fast the cars move. The app really adds to the experience and makes the toy very interactive. My daughter was so excited to watch the cars go through the loop. My husband has even enjoyed this set! It's fun to experiment and reconfigure the track in different ways. I highly recommend this track set!
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
3
Great item but missing pieces
on January 9, 2021
Posted by: Moro Mommy
Received as a Christmas gift but when we opened it we were missing two cars, two track connectors, and portal and charger. Luckily we already had the portal from a starter kit without the track otherwise my kids would have been even more disappointed. They had a blast playing with the track and all the new features it unlocked in the app. Just disappointing knowing a family member paid what they did for an incomplete item!
I would recommend this to a friend!
Response from shop.mattel.comBy mattel, January 11, 2021
We're sincerely sorry you are missing pieces! Please reach out to our Customer Service team, and we'll be more than happy to help! Phone support is available at 800-524-8697, Mon.- Fri., 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. EST.
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com
Customer Rating
4
Thumbs Up (with some Caveats)!
on August 12, 2020
Posted by: RexsMom
from South Eastern, CT
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This is really a beautiful set. From the outer box, to the way the pieces are packaged inside, and even setting it up, it’s a huge visual upgrade from the normal Hot Wheels sets. The track pieces are extremely stable. The booster, even though manual, just looks good. You’re not going to be able to look at the other sets and add-ons the same way once you have this set.
My son had a lot of fun with this set even without the Hot Wheels ID app. The booster really makes the cars go fast, significantly faster than the D-battery boosters (both variable and single speed). What this also means is that when a car goes off the track, it’s going to make a huge crash, and if anyone is in the way…Let’s just say, it doesn’t cause an injury, but it does sting. It’s a fairly large set and can be configured in several different ways. I didn’t see any additional track pieces available, aside from buying an upgrade kit, so you are limited to what you have in the box.
There are a wide selection of cars for the Hot Wheels ID set offered at a relatively decent price. They are usually about $7 each, but I have seen them for $5 or less. I’ve only seen these cars at one local store, which means I’ll probably be ordering online.
Where I have the most issues is with the app. It was a little bit of a headache to get installed. The file is huge, and the portal required a firmware update right away. For an impatient child waiting to play with something new, this was a little bit annoying. Also, every time we started the app, it showed us the new current cars. I get it, but it would be nice if this went away after a few times. The app screens are busy, but the pictures of the cars are really nice and well done. On the flip side, we haven’t had to do anything else after everything was updated, and my son really liked playing the on-app only games. We all really liked the free play option with the track. I do wish the free play option was a bit more real time, as when we had stopped revving the booster, the rpms on the app continued to increase. It’s a small thing, though. Also, the location setting must be on for the set to read the cars and the portal. I like that the Hot Wheels ID app is supported by Mattel and probably won’t be going away anytime soon. The app can also detect the setup of your track, which is AWESOME!!
Overall, if your child is just looking to play with the tracks, this is probably not the set for you. The app really uplifts the set and makes you feel like it was worth the price. I would like to see additional pieces available for the track, such as maybe another loop, more straight pieces, and connectors. I LOVE that this can connect to the basic tracks and that it can be played with without the app. I do absolutely recommend this set, as long as you keep some of the app issues in mind.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting shop.mattel.com