Electronic Dice

I'm a sucker for dice. I love the variety of colours and shapes you can get these days. I love the way they roll and the anticipation of whether or not Lady Luck will smile on you with each throw. So when my elder daughter was emptying out her Xmas stocking the other day I was particularly excited when I saw a packet of electronic dice. My wife had picked them up at a cheap dollar store as a stocking filler and hadn't told me about it. My daughter was so-so about them, she had other presents she was more interested in, but she did open them and had a throw or two.

Each die has two of those small button batteries powering it. When sensors within the die detect it rolling on a surface the pips light up and start flashing while it emits a high-pitched beeping. The die will roll until the weight of the batteries and gravity forces it to come to a halt on a flat base. After a few seconds of flashing and beeping a random number is selected and the corresponding pips light up in a solid display. If you wanted to you could even use them in the dark!

These dice are cool and are worth having for the novelty factor alone. I wouldn't necessarily use them for a game that requires 6-sided dice though. I'm sure people would soon get irritated by the incessant beeping and the short delay until a random number is generated. Having said that, these dice have found a place in my dice bag. Just don't tell my daughter...