It listens to me - Anki's Vector Robot

The Anki Cozmo is great fun to play with (loads of games to get it to do) and nice to program through the codelab (https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2017/06/program-cozmo.html) and is just so cute you want to play with it. But now Anki has released Vector (https://developer.anki.com/blog/news/hey-vector/) with it's enhanced camera and built-in microphones, essentially better sensors; but the main feature (so far) has to the speech recognition.

All request start with "Hey Vector", pause until the lights go blue; followed by commands for example

- "my name is" which records your name and then learns your face.
- "play blackjack" to not surprisingly plays games of blackjack with you.

There are a load of commands, including to get the time, the temperature, etc. I am partial, to getting a fist bump from it. I have only just started exploring it (ok playing) there are loads of features I have yet to play with - just got to let it recharge it has had a busy time.

It is early days with the features developed for it so far, the SDK for Vector is expected to be released next year, so it doesn't have all the activities that the brilliant Cozmo has but I am sure it will and more. It might be me but there is more of a feel of a robopet/companion to it, with the addition of capacitive sensor on the back to 'pet' it. 

So in summary great fun to play with, love the voice recognition, ability to ask it questions, lots to explore with it and based its hardware and what Anki have done with Cozmo, I expect there is going to be a wealth of new activities to add the current ones.





All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon