Swimways Light-up Beach Ball

Beach balls have been a source of fun for both children and adults over the years.

With such a perfected design, it's hard to imagine what you could do with a beach ball to make it new.

However, the Swimways Light-Up Beach Ball attempts to do just that. By making the ball light up in the dark, Swimways hope to inject a healthy dose of novelty into a toy that's probably as popular today as it was when it was first available.

Let's see if the novelty makes it worthy of purchase.

Features Of The Swimways Light-up Beach Ball

* Impact activated,
* Flashes in red, green and blue,
* Batteries included

The Swimways Light-up Beach Ball is nicely designed. In place of the bold primary colors of the classic beach ball design, this ball is covered in an attractive star-design that fits perfectly with its intended use during the night.

It's large too, but despite its special features it floats well when struck into the air. This means it's pretty much as good for games as a classic beach ball.

What sets this ball apart from others is its unique light-up feature. Basically, the ball has an impact sensor. Whenever this sensor is triggered (in other words, whenever the ball is hit) it sets off a whole load of bright little flashes for a few seconds.

This looks pretty in the dark, and also means you can keep track of the ball when playing at night.

Unfortunately, the ball isn't perfect and the flaws it suffers from are quite serious. Firstly, the impact sensor can be quite temperamental. In other words, the lights aren't always triggered as you'd expect.

This can make it hard to see the ball in the dark, and really spoils the otherwise pretty effect when playing at night.

Another issue is with general durability. The sensor can go dead in a short space of time. It's even been reported that the ball has no longer functioned after its first hour of use.

Of course, each persons experience is different, but it's still a shame to see these balls falling short on this front.

It's not only the sensor that suffers with durability problems either. The ball will sometimes leak air, making it deflate rather quickly during use.

This can be really frustrating and ruins the experience of playing with the ball.

This ball is probably best for parties (whether for adults or kids). If it doesn't last beyond the first party then it won't necessarily seem like such a loss.

If, however, you bought this ball hoping for it to last long into the future you should probably look elsewhere.

The SwimWays Light-up Beach Ball is a fun product but it's held back by inconsistency in product quality. It isn't too expensive, so if you can afford to risk wasting a bit of money in exchange for possible good fun then this might work for you. Otherwise you'll need to give this a miss.