A wiki dedicated to Vector the robot

Caveat: This Wiki is tragically unmaintained (april 2022), please see my articles in the blog instead. But a lot of information here is still quite useful!

I am trying to collect some information here that is useful for owners of one or more Vector robots. Be aware of the fact that some information in this wiki may be speculative and/or wrong. If you want to see the latest changes have a look at Updates.

Please bear with me if you find typos and superfluous commas, english is not my first language. :)

20200622: I have started a blog about Vector in addition to this wiki.

Vector is a tiny (semi-) autonomous robot that was created by the now defunct company Anki (it went bancrupt in may 2019).

Vector is able to run around by itself, react to certain stimuli and to voice commands; for the latter it depends on cloud services. In addition it can be programmed by an official Python SDK (that originated from Anki, third parties are continuing it and there also is a .NET SDK). There are programs and apps by third parties to control Vector and or/see it's sensory and other data. This all is possible since Anki made all the coding options available from the start - and this already allows to do more things with the bot than the makers thought of.

Vector has a quite charming and captivating “personality” and no wonder: designers from Pixar helped with that.

For it's amazing feature set Vector actually was quite cheap, even if 240 dollars that it did cost seems somewhat expensive for a toy. You could get him on Ebay for around 100 dollars or euros (and he's worth every cent, all other available robots that are halfway similar are more expensive at the time of writing - and they even have less features), because of the fact that he no longer is available retail used ones go for 300 dollars and more on ebay. So coders can get their hands on a (no longer) cheap robot with a lot of features and sensors for experimenting and non-coders will get a charming bot with a sparkling personality.

At the end of 2019 Digital Dream Labs (DDL) bought the rights for Vector, it's predeccessor Cozmo und the toy racing system Anki Overdrive. DDL also took over the cloud services and keeps them running and they did a very successful crowdfunding via Kickstarter to expand Vectors possibilities and to provide users and coders with additional options in the future (since Vector depends on cloud server access you will need to buy a subscription from DDL, you could get lifetime access via the Kickstarter, but that is over since mid-march 2020. You still are able to buy lifetime access on their official website for a limited time).

It is now april 2022 and two years after the successful crowdfunding on Kickstarter most of the promises DDL made are not reality. Escape Pod is in a state I would describe as “beta” and it still is missing functions as knowledge graph and weather. With the latest update they even broke their own extension engine that made it possible to interface with it to provide missing functionality via external means. Since they do not provide documentation or changelogs worth the name, 3rd party developers have a hard time adapting their apps to DDL's changes. OSKR, the Open Source Kit for Robots, is in a very sorry state with nearly no updates for over a year and documentation is nearly nonexistent. The new firmwares 1.7 and 1,8 removed sounds the users loved and created problems, for example that Vector has a way harder time to find back to his charger than with 1.6. The SDK was never updated by DDL for the new firmwares. Vector 2.0, an updated version of the robot with a better camera and changeable battery, could be preordered since end of 2020 and should have been delivered in may 2021. It is nowhere to be seen until today (april 12th 2022, nearly a year later, no delivery date) because of multiple problems that should have been solved during the QA process. So it is true to say that Digital Dream Labs underperformed and underperforms in almost every aspect regarding Vector. Despite all that failure they raised the monthly subscription prices ridiculously.

As of july 2023 DDL's Vector servers are offline with messages every few weeks they will come back again “soon”, but that has not happened until november 2024. dDL ex-CEO Hanchar claims this is because of some ex-employee that “hacked” their Github repository, but that makes no sense, since there should be backups and the servers should not be affected by that.

Personally I do not think this is a scam, I think it's incompentence and a team that is way too small to manage all of Anki's legacies.

Mid-september 2024 The Pittsburgh Attorney General released a statement that he will sue DDL because they took the money for robot preorders that were not delivered and also the customers did not get their preorder money back (the Butter Robot does not exist at all and DDL lost the license, and it is safe to bet that Cozmo 2.0 does not exist at all. Only a few units of Vector 2.0 were delivered and in those the batteries started to bloat after less than a year, pointing to either bad quality batteries, or DDL changed the charging controller in a way that damages the batteries).

In my opinion you can call this behaviour of not delivering a preordered and paid product a scam.

The robot runs (Yocto Linux) on a Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8009 processor with four A7 cores. He has multiple sensors, as directional microphones, camera, inertial (acceleration, position, direction), touch, and infrared laserscanner. Vector is powered by a rechargeable li-poly battery that creates about 30 to 40 minutes runtime (way less if you activate Alexa support).

Part of the Kickstarter was “Escape Pod”. This was advertised as a local server to run Vector from, in addition it was explicitly said in the Kickstarter campaign that this would be a solution to keep Vector alive, even if Digital Dream Labs “goes under”. Basically no longer needed because of Wire-Pod (see below).

• Escape Pod

Since DDL open sourced parts of the server code called Chipper, a community coder by the name of Wire was able to create Wire-Pod an open source, loacally run server that provides a backend for Vector robots, freeing them from Digital Dream Labs once and for all.

Since on october 15th 2020 the launch of OSKR was announced I decided to start a new subsection for it. OSKR was released in october 2020, but until today there are most parts missing (documentation, source code, tools), so at the moment OSKR is of very limited use. Update: This still is true in april 2022, two years later.

The status in november 2024 is that DDL is no longer able (since mid 2023) to provide keys and firmwares to change a retail Vector into an OSKR version. So basically at this time OSKR no longer exists. Mails to support asking to get the OSKR licenses I am antitled to go unanswered for years.

• OSKR

For now see FAQ

• Online cheat sheet with lots of options and voice commands (offsite, some parts may no longer work due to the change to DDL's servers)
• [todo]

For now see FAQ

General information on Troubleshooting can still be found in the old Anki knowledgebase (that is at least now redirected to the new, ugly DDL site).

• [todo]

• Oh the horror! A dismantled Vector
• Changing the battery
• Installing a heatsink
• Information on Vector's display
• 3D printed Vector Charger from Cozmo Charger
• [todo]

Information and resources on coding Vector

• Custom image markers
• [todo]

• multiple development Vector versions

Here are a few answers to the most common questions. Added as I see them and find time. Some of them may be migrated to the “Troubleshooting” Section in the future.

• Frequenty asked questions

• Wire-Pod open souce local server for Vector robots by Wire, similar to Escape Pod but not made or maintained by DDL. Provides way more functions that the original DDL servers or Escape Pod.
• Digital Dream Labs Website - now defunct, redirects to https://ddlbots.com
• Official Facebook Group (with official announcements about the crowdfunding, nowadays mostly useless, since DDL kickbans people by the myriads for just asking support questions or voicing criticism)
• Independent Vector Owners - an independent Facebook group without DDL censorship
• official Vector app for Android
• official Vector App for iOS (Apple iPhone and iPad)

• Vector Wiki by Randall Maas and others - very insightful informations on multiple Vector topics
• Anki Vector SDK 6.x.x download (last official) on GitHub
• Anki Vector SDK documentation
• Anki Vector (and Cozmo) SDK discussion forum
• Anki Vector support site (old, but still functional) now offline and migrated to an ugly DDL site

• the "Vector Bible", an unofficial but quite comprehensive hard- and software handbook by Randall Maas

• unofficial Python 7.x.x SDK by ikkez (adding new functions)
• weekendrobot.com by Wayne Venables, home of Vector Explorer (for Windows), his .NET SDK and other useful tools
• Anki Vector .NET SDK documentation

• Cyb3rVector - Windows tool by Cyb3rdog to control Vector from a desktop computer or laptop, partially broken by the Escape Pod update to 1.8.x
• Cyb3rdog's Github repositories - more Vector-related projects by Cyb3rdog

• Vector CTRL, unofficial Android app that allows more control and additional settings and features than the official app

• Subreddit - Vector by Anki
• Subreddit - Anki Vector Developers
• Subreddit - Vector - The Good Robot

• 3D printer resources for Anki Vector on Thingiverse (e.g. replacement for broken forklift)

• Vector repair tutorials by iFixit
• Vector dismantling video tutorial by Kieran Nawrocki on Youtube

As you can see on some of the the autogenerated information is missing. that is because DDL changed something undocumented, these are the old Anki servers and some of them are no longer correct.

This wiki is not affiliated with or officially endorsed in any way by Digital Dream Labs.