More than three decades after his debut, Transformer's Soundwave is mulling a tech spin on its outdated cassette recorder conversion.
A collaboration between U.S. toy maker Hasbro and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has led to Soundwave's new transformation into Xiaomi's 7.9 inch, champagne colored tablet computer.
On Tuesday, Xiaomi kicked off a crowdfunding campaign for the new Soundwave figure in which it aims to sell 1,000 action figures at 169 yuan each (around 26 U.S. dollars) in 13 days.
The campaign has been well received, with people logging in hundreds more orders than originally planned.
As one of the most recognizable characters in the Transformer series,Soundwave's original transformation is a microcassette recorder in the 1980s.
Over the years, Hasbro has made Soundwave figures with various transformations.
Xiaomi has so far released two generations of tablet. The newly conceived transformation for Soundwave is Mi Pad 2, launched late last year and compatible with both Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows 10 operating systems.
The company also said in the crowdfunding campaign that it is considering launching more Transformer figures convertible to Xiaomi's devices in the future.
In addition to making smartphones and tablets, Beijing-based Xiaomi has been rolling out a spate of home appliances from air and water purifiers to television and weight scales, all wired through WiFi to enable remote control on a smartphone.
Last month, Xiaomi launched a rice cooker, the latest addition to the company's smart home appliances, inspired by Chinese consumers' obsession with quality products from countries such as Japan.
