Christmas came and went, and with it a strange toy. I received a Nabaztag (WiFi Rabbit) from my girlfriend. She knew I was a sucker for things that light up, and in this case resemble a bunny. As excited as I was to see it work, I had to wait till Monday to be able to buy an adapter for the French plug.
Once plugged in and registered, I quickly realized that without paying for a subscription my Bunny would be seriously crippled. Not that they don’t offer some basic services, but most of them didn’t apply to me. Of the 10 offered, two applied specifically to Paris, one to people that have multiple Nabaztags, and so on. The weather and clock service seemed like it could be of some use, but the weather report is only broadcast two times a day, and tends not to match other weather services. The clock only presents a chime on the hour, and can come up to 10 minutes late.

Needless to say this gift was going back. I wasn’t going to pay for a subscription just so people could send messages to it without being charged, and I wasn’t going to settle for it’s limited functionality. However, the 15 day return period had since passed and this bunny wasn’t going anywhere.

Thankfully an API is available… in French. I don’t know any French. Actually most of the documentation only exists in French, and every so often the website drops from English to French. With the help of translation services, and my girlfriend (who speaks French), I’ve been able to assemble bits and pieces of the API.

This is the result. I’ve begun to develop a site, in English, that will let people control these things using the published API. As I learn more, I plan to expand the site to add new functionality. It’s rather basic but it sure beats paying 3.9 to 5.9 euros a month.

If you have any information about Nabaztag, or have no clue how it works, feel free to comment on this post and I’ll try to respond where necessary.

Update: The links have been corrected. Thanks Jomy.