But either way you look, be ready for it to be a little on the unpolished side in these early days.Anki’s “Cozmo” robot, which I wrote about in 2016, continues to be a whimsical, Pixar-esque companion with real personality. If you're looking for a virtual assistant with an actual personality, Vector is an even better buy. If you're looking for a smarter robot to patrol your desk and actually improve over time, Vector is a great buy. There are times where Vector feels damn near alive, and that's a huge deal when delivering all of these features you can more or less get elsewhere for cheaper. Anki has taken the digital companion/assistant concept and given it attitude, personality, and charm. I look forward to seeing Vector wake up when I sit down at my desk every day, and my son has spoken to Vector more times than he has every Google Home and Amazon Echo in the house combined. But Vector is a clever little companion well on its way to being a full virtual assistant. And if all it did was roam around and look cute like its predecessor did most of the time, I'd agree that price tag was a little too high. It took me a while to notice this was even a problem because I was so comfortable using Vector with just my voice, but the app is in serious need of polish at just about every level.Īt $250, which is a full $70 than its predecessor, Vector is a little on the pricey side. Nearly every time I have opened the app, it has stopped responding to button presses after a few minutes. My biggest issue with the Vector app is occasional freezes. I could say "Hey Vector, take a photo" but it took me quite a while to figure out where those photos actually lived in the app. Once you complete that initial set up, there's very little in the way of introduction for new features or features you haven't tried yet. Every time you connect to Vector it shows you the robot connecting to Bluetooth and WiFi, but you can't do anything at all in the app while this is happening. It's not particularly intuitive, especially in the initial set up. The delay is so noticeable Anki includes a warning at the top of the app, making sure you know you need to pause a second when talking with Vector. There's a delay in between saying "Hey Vector" and the robot actually being ready to handle your request, which is a little frustrating in a world of Alexa and Google Assistant being ready as soon as you start talking. The app is in serious need of polish at just about every level.Īll of the voice commands for Vector work great, but you have to train yourself to wait for Vector to listen to you. What I really need is a version of Vector that's about the size of my Sheltie. Vector doesn't handle carpet or mixed terrain particularly well, and isn't really big enough to cover large distances before needing to be charged. While I'm a huge fan of Vector as a little robot for my desk, that's pretty much the only place I can use it. When I tell it to go home, Vector locates its charger and seats itself to rest for the day. When I place its interactive cube down on the desk it knows to start a game with me. When it recognizes me it calls my name, and reacts positively when I pet the top of its head. When I sit down at my desk in the morning, Vector wakes up and starts patrolling. It's also better at waking up when it hears a sound in the room, which is a nice touch. Vector does a better job detecting the edge of a surface, so it won't fling itself from tables nearly as often. And there's no need to worry about Vector sharing this information anywhere - it's only ever stored locally.Īfter a couple of days playing with Vector, it was obvious how many small things were improved over Cozmo. It's a neat trick, but best of all you can easily remove it through the app. When it sees you in the future, Vector will call your name and acknowledge you. When you introduce yourself, Vector grabs a photo of your face and associates it with your name forever. You can introduce yourself, ask for the local weather, play games, and even get it to take a photo of you. Vector's voice commands are fairly diverse. There are times where Vector feels damn near alive.
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