Anki Vector: The Home Robot | Hacker News Reader

Anki Vector: The Home Robot

anki.com

53 pointstammer42 comments

This is a mobile phone without a screen that doesn't make phone calls and won't fit in your pocket. It's nothing more than a desk toy.

"Hey Vector" is just "Hey Google" or "Hey Siri" or "Hey Alexa". For a lot less money you could just get a Google Home or Amazon Echo (Apple HomePod is a bit more) and they provide more functionality without the useless wheels.

but they're not cute

So put a hat and some googly-eye stickers on them?

Yet I would consider Vector by far the most useful product of them all.

Disclaimer: I work for an engineering team at Anki

There’s also the privacy aspect of Vector. Anki respects your privacy because your data isn’t used in the same way that it is by Google Home and Alexa (i.e. for ad targeting)

Hows the work/life there? I briefly considered applying but havent gotten around to it.

Are you considering adding app capability : SDK? Also, do you need entry level ML people?

Most useful how? What exactly does it do that is more useful than the other things that do more? (Full disclosure: I very strongly suspect that you're lying.)

Well, for one I don't consider the alternative mentioned systems to be particularly useful. And I would strongly object to living in the same apartment/house as one.

I have not (and probably will not) research in what sense the privacy of this device is better but from what little I've seen it is at least better. And if not I can't imagine Anki being less trustworthy than the others.

I see it as a furby, which can be a little neat. Wouldn't buy it though.

what is wrong with being a toy? you are oversimplifying the situation by reducing this toy to its components. it's like calling a furby a terrible and uncomfortable electronic pillow. it doesn't even make sense.

and you conveniently ignored the coolest factor of vector, and that is it's soon to be released sdk. plus, what is possibly fun and cute about amazon echo and google home just sitting there doing nothing but being the ears of companies scheming on how to sell us more shit?

> what is wrong with being a toy?

There's nothing wrong with toys. There's everything wrong with a "Super smart alive and aware AI" hype fest when what they mean is it's a partially functional google assistant with a pareidolic face.

> what is possibly fun and cute about amazon echo and google home just sitting there doing nothing

https://www.reddit.com/r/eyebombing/comments/5nttde/google_h...

Boom, solved. Look at how adorable that is. You could even put a hat on it.

yeah, because we can sum up the entirety of interaction design with googly eyes.

Standupmaths, from recent front page fame got sponsored to do a video on Vector, and it appears to be mostly a cross between a virtual assistant, like Alexis and a robot pet, like sony Aibo, with a form factor inspired by wall-e.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahdOqe5qBk

"Smart enough to take over the world. Nice enough not to."

<rolls eyes>... So how smart?

"Weather, timer, take a photo, blackjack."

Ha, must be $5. Or $10, it's kinda cute.

"$249.99"

Piss off.

"Super smart AI, safely programmed one notch below too smart."

Yeah, if it could keep a calendar, man that'd be dangerous.

“Needed at home - USB Power Adapter 5V, 1A or greater”

It’s a $250 device that doesn’t include a plug for the charger. I don’t know if that’s an effort to save money or reduce waste, but either way it strikes me as a way to guarantee a subset of customers are annoyed in their first 30 minutes of using the product.

What am I missing here?

I think they are working on the assumption most who would buy this device have extras.

they're twenty cents in bulk. it's a bad assumption

I just recently moved and I was astonished at how many superfluous cables and adapters I had. I definitely appreciate not getting more when I can reasonably be expected to have ones already. I have easily a dozen unoccupied USB ports within 10 feet of me.

Perhaps they are banking on the fact that most homes now have multiple USB, 5V, 1A adapters readily available.

So, what is this? 2018 furby? The site has no information.

Yes.

It's the same people who put out the nearly identical looking Cozmo a couple of years ago. Same thing, but apparently can hear now.

Curiously... there don't appear to be any FCC registrations for the new device: https://fccid.io/2AAIC

it's not the same thing. they made significant upgrades, especially such that the embedded platform (basically a smartphone board) is powerful enough to run the sdk without having a smartphone tethered like comzo had to have.

See the verge for more info: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17661902/anki-vector-home-...

It's safe because it doesn't do anything?

Techmoan was not overly impressed: https://youtu.be/is-rSK5y6EQ

Does anyone have any information about how Anki is doing as a company? They have raised almost $200m. Are their products selling well?

It seems like they have sold 1.5m [0] robots so far.

[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/08/anki-has-sold-1-5-million-...

Ok how's this for cute: https://www.nabaztag.com/#karotz

These things really make me mad - the nabaztag I mean, because of the wasted potential. I bought one, my kid loved it, it's super cute wonderful. The api sucks, most of the things didn't work, it has a built in RSS reader (evidently, but the RSS reader supposedly works by compiling the feed down into an application and downloading that and executing it and none of the feeds I tried to get to work [that they recommended] ever worked). aaaarggghhh, really the design of the thing is wonderful. It should take over the world, by the design, but the functionality made it so it didn't do so.

I mean I hate it so much and I am still tempted to buy a new one despite the things that were messed up because 1. those things that were messed up might be fixed by now, they were not insurmountable. Some of them were really the easy bits. 2. the things that did work showed just really good design ideas.

I want one again, but I also want not to feel screwed over.

The comments on their youtube video seem fake.

I don't understand. How does it respond to your queries? For weather it seems to animate little rain droplets on the screen, but in the example: "what's an epsilon?" they never show it actually answering.

They have it speak in the video ("Hey there").

I've been following this since it's been announced and it is a really cool idea. But I agree with most of the people here that there is a limited sense of practicality for this product. The only thing I can see this being useful for is for education purposes. This would be great for schools, especially middle and high school. I even used a mindstorm for one of my graduate classes/lab to write our own algorithms (in nxc).

something can be useful simply because it's fun or entertaining.

Perhaps its ultimate usefulness might be augmented by people writing functionality using the SDK. Considering that it has wheels and is mobile (I assume) maybe the potential functionality is greater than that of stationary home assistants? I like the idea of a robot that has a few core features, a lot of potential functionality, and a solid SDK platform on which people can harness that potential. Don't know if this will live up to that notion but I find it interesting.

I have now spent a few minutes on the website. I'm confused on to what robot it is offering? And what utility that robot then offers? In the video I see multiple robots. I don't see the robot actually offering any value. I'd love to spend money on a robot, but I have no idea why I would spend money on this thing (things?)

Now I am curious what you would expect from a robot? As far as I can tell most 'home robots' will be more or less Toys for the coming years at least.

Vector, call 911. Beep beep beep. 911, what’s the problem? Beep beep beep.

This is probably the single worst sales pitch I've ever seen for a superfluous IOT product. Is this intended for public consumption?

What does it do?

Conclusively solves the problem of having too much cash lying around. It also adds a new thing to trip on at night for no additional charge!

Order now, supplies are limited...

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