People are talking about the winning personality of the small robot that was built for durability. Anki Vector may not be like any of your human friends, in that it is weak on answering questions, even lacks a real purpose in life, and may not be able to do other things that smart people do.
However, Vector has a bright personality, great graphics for facial expressions, sleek black and gold paint job. Although Vector also can compare to Alexa of Google Assistant when it comes to knowledgebase, it certainly has its own strength.
Vector is the first smart home robot made by Anki. After a very successful Kickstarter campaign, the robot came alive, so to speak. But it can’t link in with security or smart home systems.
For all its weaknesses, Vector can find its charger and dock itself when it needs to power up. Next, it has a kind of ‘feeling’ body and this allows you to pet the robot and it will feel it in a way we may not be able to understand.
For performance, it has a processor, storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas, a battery, and more. No matter bad things are, Vector doesn’t need a control app but the owner has to set it up with a smartphone. After you do that, Vector can operate on its own.
The face of the robot is an LCD screen to display graphics and answers to questions but most of the time it will just show eyes and nothing more in expressions. At other times, the eyes can look angry, frustrated, or even sad. But it can also look happy, especially when it sees a person through the wide-angle camera that is placed under the screen.
You can also talk to Vector. That is an effort in getting to know each other better. You can call out to it as you do to a close pal, and you can also use prompt phrases. Vector has four microphones it uses to listen for its activation phrases. This works in addition to using eye contact to get its attention.
It can take almost a minute for the robot to wake up sometimes. When it does, it opens its eyes and looks at you. It calls out your name and you can see that it is happy. This is one exciting situation that many robot owners will cherish remembering.
