wire-prod-pod

Custom Vector escape pod designed for regular production Vectors. No OSKR required.

Installation

Some general notices:

This will require you to put your Vector on 1.8. You cannot keep him on 1.6 if you want to use these instructions.
This will NOT clear user data, and the Vector SDK should work just fine.
It is recommended you use a Raspberry Pi 4, though you can use any Linux computer
For this; you do not need to pay for the voice subscription, Escape Pod, or any DDL service.

Prerequisites

Raspberry Pi capable of running 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS
- A standard computer running Linux works too. There will be two sets of instructions for whichever you choose
A production Vector 1.0 that has already been setup like normal (no subscription required, he should just be active)
- Vector 2.0 is not supported yet
A computer with Google Chrome and Bluetooth
- If you are using Linux, go to chrome://flags and enable Experimental web platform features, then relaunch Chrome

Set up the bot

Put your Vector on the charger and hold the button for 15 seconds. The light will turn off after ~5 seconds, that is normal. Just keep holding until he turns back on (This is not the same as clearing user data. Do NOT clear user data).
He should be at a screen that shows anki.com/v. On a computer with Bluetooth support (preferably Windows or macOS), go to https://www.project-victor.org/noflow-devsetup in a Chrome browser and connect to Vector like it tells you to. Do not check Enable auto-setup flow.
- You may need to reload the page a few times for it to connect correctly
- If you are using Linux, you may need to open up Bluetooth settings and keep it discovering in the background
You should now be at a terminal-like interface. In that interface, connect Vector to Wi-Fi with this command:

wifi-connect "ssid" "password"

Replace ssid with your network name, password with the network password
Example: wifi-connect "AnkiRobits" "KlaatuBaradaNikto!"

Enter the following command into the site:

ota-start http://173.20.162.183:81/escapepod-prod-1.8.ota

If it disconnects in the middle of the download (you can tell by the [####] being replaced by just $), do not reconnect. The bot is still downloading it and will reboot automatically after a while.

Wait for that to finish. Once he has rebooted, continue on to the next set of instructions.

Set up wire-pod

Only do one of the following sets of instructions.

Option one: Raspberry Pi 4

Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager, insert a micro-SD card into your computer/into a reader
Follow along with this video. This is an example of how I would set it up for my network/liking. The only things you should change are the user password (located under pi, change it to anything you want and make sure you remember it) and the network information (you should put your network name instead of AnkiRobits, your network password instead of KlaatuBaradaNikto!)
Insert the SD card into your Pi, wait a few minutes for it to boot up
On your computer, open up a Terminal (or Powershell on Windows) and run the following command:

ssh pi@escapepod

If it gives you a prompt, enter yes. Then enter in the user password you chose in Raspberry Pi Imager (under pi)
The terminal should show pi@escapepod ~ $. If you are there, run the following command:

wget -O - https://wire.my.to/setup-wire-pod.sh | bash

After that completes, open a browser and go to http://escapepod:8080. From there, click on "Set up wire-pod" and do as it says. You do not need to do the part at the bottom where it says Choose file, that is reserved for OSKR/dev bots.
Voice commands should now work!

Option two: (almost) Any Linux system

(Your distribution must have either pacman, dnf, or apt, make sure you have ports 443 and 8080 open)

Open a terminal
Use the following commands to change your hostname to escapepod and have that register with the network (this will change your computer's name):

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname escapepod
sudo systemctl restart avahi-daemon
sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon

(ignore any errors that may pop up, they are normal)

Open a terminal and run this command:

wget -O - https://wire.my.to/setup-wire-pod.sh | bash

Once that has completed, go to http://escapepod:8080 in a browser and click on Set up wire-pod (API keys, STT service, etc). From there, follow the instructions. It should then be set up and voice commands should now work on Vector.

Updating

Wire-pod auto-updates once a day. To force an update, run the following commands:

cd ~/wire-prod-pod
sudo ./update.sh

Web interface

Chipper hosts a web interface at port 8080. This can be used to create custom intents and to configure specific bots.

To get to it, open a browser and go to http://serverip:8080, replacing serverip with the IP address of the machine running the chipper server. If you are running the browser on the machine running chipper, you can go to http://localhost:8080

Set up wire-pod
- This is where you would enter your API keys for Houndify and WeatherAPI if you want to set those up.
Configure user settings
- Custom intents
  - Example: You want to create a custom intent that allows Vector to turn the lights off. The transcribed text that matches to this intent should include "lights off" and other variations like "lid off" for better detection. It will execute a python script located in your user directory called vlight.py. It should be launched with the off variable because the lights are being turned off. This script turns the lights off and connects to Vector so he says "The lights are off!". You have multiple bots registered with the SDK so a serial number must be specified. After the SDK program is complete, chipper should send intent_greeting_goodnight. The following screenshot is a correct configuration for this case. The Add intent button would be pressed after everything is put in.
  - (If !botSerial is put into the program arguments, chipper will substitute it for the serial number of the bot that is making a request to it.)
- Bot configurations
  - Example: You have a bot on 1.6 with a serial number of 0060059b; located in Des Moines, Iowa; and you would like to use Fahrenheit for the temperature unit in the weather command. The following screenshot is a correct configuration for that bot. Once that is input, you would press "Add bot". It would then be registered with chipper.
See logs
- This shows the logs produced by wire-pod. Updates every 200ms, shows the last 30 lines.

Status

OS Support:

Arch
Debian/Ubuntu/other APT distros
Fedora/openSUSE
Windows under WSL

Architecture support:

amd64/x86_64
arm64/aarch64
armv7l/arm32 (picovoice only)

Things wire-prod-pod has worked on:

Raspberry Pi 4B+ 4GB RAM with Raspberry Pi OS
- Must be 64-bit OS if using Coqui
Raspberry Pi 4B+ 4GB RAM with Manjaro 22.04
Nintendo Switch with L4T Ubuntu
Desktop with Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM with Ubuntu 22.04
Laptop with mobile i7
Desktop with Xeon X5650

General notes:

If you get this error when running chipper, you are using a port that is being taken up by a program already: panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
You have to speak a little slower than normal for Coqui STT to understand you.

Current implemented actions:

Good robot
Bad robot
Change your eye color
Change your eye color to
- blue, purple, teal, green, yellow
How old are you
Start exploring ("deploring" works better)
Go home (or "go to your charger")
Go to sleep
Good morning
Good night
What time is it
Goodbye
Happy new year
Happy holidays
Hello
Sign in alexa
Sign out alexa
I love you
Move forward
Turn left
Turn right
Roll your cube
Pop a wheelie
Fistbump
Blackjack (say yes/no instead of hit/stand)
Yes (affirmative)
No (negative)
What's my name
Take a photo
Take a photo of me
What's the weather
- Requires API setup
What's the weather in
- Requires API setup
Im sorry
Back up
Come here
Volume down
Be quiet
Volume up
Look at me
Set the volume to
- High, medium high, medium, medium low, low
Shut up
My name is
I have a question
- Requires API setup
Set a timer for seconds
Set a timer for minutes
Check the timer
Stop the timer
Dance
Pick up the cube
Fetch the cube
Find the cube
Do a trick
Record a message for
- Enable Messaging feature in webViz Features tab
Play a message for
- Enable Messaging feature in webViz Features tab

Credits

Digital Dream Labs for saving Vector and for open sourcing chipper which made this possible
dietb for rewriting chipper and giving tips
GitHub Copilot for being awesome
xanathon for making the web interface look nice and for the publicity

Skybird129/wire-prod-pod