Freenove 4WD Smart Car Kit for Raspberry Pi 5 4 B 3 B+ Zero 2 W, Face Tracking, Line Tracking, Light Tracing, Obstacle Avoidance, App Control, Camera, Servo (Raspberry Pi NOT Included)

I recently bought the Smart Car Kit with Raspberry pi with purpose to practice & familiarise with embedded systems and learn easily Raspberry pi functionalities. This was totally achieved with Freenove Smart Car.Here are a few advantages that you receive with the Smart Car:1) Well documented instructions ( so easy to learn both raspberry pi config and assembling the components)2) Access to all the code (since it is Open Source). You can expand new functionalities. I could modify areas and create my own app. (it includes also the library openCV so the smart has face recognitions feature too)3) Provided software. The provided software is very useful, testing the sub-components, using server-client so you can remote control the car from laptop or mobile. And much more.4) Outstanding customer support. The customer support was impressive. First time I see that in amazon purchases. in any issue that I encountered they resolved it quickly (1 day or less) with thorough instructions and helped me progress smoothly my experiments with the Car kit. Also they sent me replacement components when I had issues quickly and free of charge, only paying the post. (for instance for usage of latest version Raspberry Pi 5)Brilliant smart kit. I definitely recommend this product.So in total with this purchase I definitely achieved my goal.

I decided to build the car with a Pi Zero W H because of the low battery drain. I needed to get a special cable as indicated in the instructions. It ends up very neat as you can see in the photos. All functions work in this configuration but I think things like face tracking might be slicker with the recommended pi 3 or 4.When first building the car I used a couple of batteries that I had lying around. The advice from Freenove is to use batteries that can sustain a high discharge rate. This is good advice. Using poor quality batteries results in the low battery warning buzzer sounding after only a fairly short use. Good batteries cure the problem! One point is that you need to remove the batteries to charge them. I found that making loops out of cable ties makes the process of removal much simpler but anything thick might interfere with the battery fitting properly.The kit is quick to assemble since much of the building is securing parts to the baseboard which contains the control components. The instructions are generally very good but can be a bit repetitive, e.g. VNC player and the assembly of the pan/tilt module which is covered twice. Best to read the instructions before you start so you know which bits to pay attention to and go straight to VNC viewer if you can.The car is a genuine four-wheel drive which means that each wheel can be controlled separately. This allows the car to be steered by having wheels go at different speeds (compared to rotating the wheels). On soft carpets the grip of the tyres is not as good so the steering is not as precise.Freenove emphasise the support they give, encouraging you to ask for help. When I first put the kit together, I could not get the buzzer to work nor the ultrasonic ranging. They are based in China so the reply came back on the following morning. It started off "Thank you for choosing Freenove. We are fully responsible for any concerns." which is a clear indication that they will do their best to sort out any problems that you have. My problem turned out to be that when I fitted the bridge between the pi and the baseboard, I had managed to bend three of the connectors to the side of the plug so they did not connect. Re-fitted and all was well.If you are anything like me you look at other kits after you buy one. There are a surprising number of car kits out there. Some have more features than this one, but are more expensive. Some have a sturdier sturdy chassis, but are more expensive. Some kits are cheaper, but do less. One of the significant differences between kits is whether the wheels are fixed or whether they turn to steer. On this kit they are fixed but Freenove do have another kit with steerable wheels.I came to the 5 star rating by weighing up price, features and support.The amazon review site seems a bit weird asking for ratings on Thickness and Sheerness. Perhaps artificial intelligence is not as intelligent as one might hope!

The car is easily assembled clear diagrams and instructions. Programming set up is clear and car performs well. Programming is by using Python 2.7 I had a raspberry pi4 and did not realise 2.7 is actually included but needed activating.(support informed me Python 3 programs are being developed). The main control program does not work with remote desktop so need to use VCN. My car had commands round the wrong way but programs are clear and it was easy to amend. I had to contact support and received prompt reply. All in all a good starting model for learning robotics.

It says so in the description, but do note, you need a Raspberry Pi (I used a Pi 3) and two 18650 batteries, which are not included.I was very keen to build this and try it out, so I downloaded the code and set up my Raspberry Pi, shortly after placing my order. Fortunately, I already had a couple of 18650 batteries. So, when the kit arrived the next day, I was good to go. Assembly took about 2 hours.First point to note is that I have big fingers and some of the screws are really tiny – I needed fine tweezers for these.Second point, when assembling the pan and tilt ‘head’, the instructions tell you to plug in the servos and run servo.py to put them in the correct position before assembly. I would recommend carrying out steps 1 to 9 of the 11 illustrated steps (page 51 at time of writing) before connecting the servos.I would also suggest connecting the cables to the camera and ultrasonic units before connecting the ‘face’ to the ‘neck’ as they are lot more accessible at this point.Excepting a couple of fiddly bits, the kit was straight forward to assemble, I ran all the test modules and everything worked first time, except it went backwards instead of forwards – but the instructions covered correcting this. It does everything shown in the Freenove video and can also be controlled directly by a phone app (android in my case). I was impressed by the quality of the build and also that all the code is open source.At the price, having a kit you can control from your phone, pretty much out of the box, is already good value, but the potential for writing your own code is even more appealing and I would imagine would be a great incentive for novice coders. I hope a community will develop where people can share their code and ideas. I also think the kit is ideal for further development – a robot arm would be a cool addition, perhaps Freenove may develop expansion kits in the future.In summary, a great kit, a great learning tool and best of all – open source!