Would you pay $180 for a USB-C water blaster that blasts an entire shot glass full of liquid every time you pull the trigger? That’s been Spyra’s pitch for the past six years, but today it’s revealing a new toy that costs (and weighs) less than a third of its previous flagship products.
Super Soaker spiritual successor Spyra just shrank its USB-C water blaster
The new SpyraGo costs less and lasts longer — but it’s also far weaker.
The new SpyraGo costs less and lasts longer — but it’s also far weaker.
is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
The new SpyraGo will cost just $54 when it arrives on March 26th, a price finally low enough to tempt me! It’s five inches shorter, between one and two inches slimmer, and importantly weighs just three pounds fully loaded. (The SpyraThree weighs nearly nine pounds at full capacity.)
Image: Spyra
The catch, unfortunately, is it’s also far less powerful: instead of firing shot-glass-sized 30 milliliter water “bullets,” the new SpyraGo will blast just 6 milliliters each time you pull the trigger. You only get about half the maximum range, and there’s no ‘charge up to fire a bigger blast’ feature. This one’s aimed at younger folks, so I guess that all makes sense.
Image: Spyra
On the plus side, you can now fill it with a water bottle (no more needing a pool or bucket!) and get 75 shots before reloading, triple that of previous blasters. It can fire its single shots twice as fast. And while there’s no more screen, you do get a new window to check your water tank.
Spyra was gracious enough to provide us with a full list of comparison specs, which I’ve distilled to create this chart:
SpyraGo vs. SpyraThree
Spec | SpyraGo | SpyraThree |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $54 | $179 |
| Volume | 6ml (0.2oz) | 30ml (1.01oz) |
| Shots | 75 | 25 |
| Shots per second | 2 | 0.9 |
| Range (horiz) | 18 feet | not disclosed |
| Range (45°) | 26 feet | 34 feet |
| Range (powershot) | N/A | 49 feet |
| Tank volume | 450ml (15.2oz) | 750ml (25.4oz) |
| Display | LED | LED + screen |
| Battery | 2S 8Wh Li-ion | 4S 30Wh Li-ion |
| Estimated runtime | 120 minutes | 70 minutes |
| Charging | USB-C, 2 hours | USB-C, 4 hours |
| Weight | 2lbs (0.89kg) | 7.3lbs (3.3kg) |
| Dimensions | 21.3 x 7.3 x 2.4 in | 26.3 x 9.4 x 3.8 in |
| Pulsate Mode | yes | no |
| Single Shot | yes | yes |
| League Mode | no | yes |
| Burst Mode | no | yes |
| Open Mode | no | yes |
Like I said when I tested the SpyraTwo and manual SpyraLX a couple years ago, water blasters have been stuck in a rut for decades, as Hasbro has largely neglected the once-dominant Super Soaker brand. And while many Chinese companies have sprung up with clones, none of them (not even Xiaomi with its Spyra-like Pulse Water Gun) have managed to match Spyra.
I don’t know if Spyra will ever quite bring back the powerful water blaster bliss of the Super Soaker CPS and XPS days, but here’s hoping.
Update April 18th, 3:01PM ET: We’ve now tested the SpyraGo, and I’m afraid it just doesn’t have the power I was hoping for... but I was pleasantly surprised by the SpyraThree!
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