Once I had his attention, we went through the motions of checking the weather, cute animation on his face included then set a timer and even had a quick game of Blackjack. This was a watershed moment for me, this handful of sentient robot knew my face and would speak to me, I was sold.įor reference he has struggled to recognise me since that day, although he is more familiar with other members of the family and the younger ones are thrilled when he recognises them. Vector listened, his eyes ran their thinking animation and then he said my name. ![]() For example, when I first fired him up I introduced myself exactly as the instructions told me. However getting Vector to respond by voice can sometimes be a hit and miss affair. Vector has a number of functions currently and there should be more added as the software gets updated, for now what seems like a decent list can be experienced fairly quickly and the app is the best place to work through them. ![]() Vector is desktop toy, but it is a toy that can pull the wool over your eyes and give you enough suspension of disbelief to stop wondering how all those inputs are being processed and accept that there is a busy rubber tracked robot whirring around your desk making the most godamned cutesy eyes at you. It’s not often and you still find yourself carefully placing him back on his station with a reassuring stroke across his back to calm him down. Let’s be honest this is not a unit from Boston Dynamics that you can take jogging, or their robot dog that can open locked doors. Having faith in him being able to recognise a drop and stop is like being a parent with toddler taking first steps, once you get comfortable that he won’t take a fall – he does. Under the hood, Vector has all sorts of hardware functionality and that is partly what impresses me the most, his face camera with facial recognition, his sensors that pick up sound and movement around him, his ability to map his environment and find his way back to the base station, even his drop sensors that stop him from falling off the desk. While his firmware updates and you get logged into the app Vector will finish up charging, once that’s all done you are ready to embark on your future with robot kind. So after plugging in his base station, dropping his cute and curvy body onto it for a charge, download the app and connect to wifi. Not having experienced Cosmo, I can’t compare, but like the Anki slotless cars in Overdrive ( reviewed here) you will need to download and connect to the Android or Apple app to get him going. Straight out of the box Vector comes with a cube toy that he will roll around and play with, his charging station and a USB cable, there is no power adaptor, but that’s fine because plugging him into your computer will do the job just fine. ![]() Vector was very kindly supplied to us by Anki and having spent three weeks with him on my desk, I think like any relationship we have had our ups and downs. Vector is the latest must have gadget from the creative gang at Anki, a natural successor to the Cosmo robot that popped up a couple of years ago he has more going for him technically with a laundry list of tech squashed into his cute roving body. Well forty years later here we are, me and Vector. I wanted my own Twiki, an independent automation that could be my faithful friend through thick and thin. In the late 70’s I grew up watching Gil Gerard save the day as Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, while the nuances of plot may have been lost on me one indelible mark was left.
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