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--- faq:faq [2020/07/14 13:19] – xanathon
+++ faq:faq [2023/01/10 22:01] (current) – [But what if DDL also goes bancrupt?] xanathon
@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 In no special order at the moment, but I may sort them later, for a quick overview refer to the table of contents to the right. If you have a question please send it to xanathon[at]thedroidyouarelookingfor[dot]info, but I'm sorry, I cannot answer them individually. I will collect the questions asked most or of public interest and add answers here. If you need a question urgently answered I suggest you ask it in the [[https://www.facebook.com/groups/AnkiVector/|Official DDL Facebook Group]].
-DDL migrated the official Anki troubleshooting page to their own. The design is awful, as with all DDL pages, but there is a lot of information: https://support.digitaldreamlabs.com/collection/6-vector
+DDL migrated the official Anki troubleshooting page to their own. The design is awful and not user-friendly, as with all DDL pages, but there is a lot of information: https://support.digitaldreamlabs.com/collection/6-vector
 ===== Why do I need to subscribe to use Vector? =====
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Digital Dream Labs bought the Anki rights and tech information and continued to provide the servers (and will provide bugfixes and updates). However: to pay developers to code those updates and to maintain the servers is expensive, since the latter run in Amazon cloud and that costs money continuously. In addition to that the voice recognition utilizes Amazon Lex and that also costs money - per single speech recognition request. Seeing how many robots are in the wild there are **a lot** requests every second and that does cost considerable money.
-So DDL started a Kickstarter campaign early this year where you could get lifetime access (and more advanced features) for a relatively small amount of money. After the Kickstarter ended, they introduced a grace period where you could get cloud service access a little more expensive than the Kickstarter prices but still very affordable. That grace period now is over and you can now choose to pay a monthly or yearly fee to keep Vector running. The price is [[https://www.digitaldreamlabs.com/pages/vector-subscription|47$ per year or 7$ per month]].
+So DDL started a Kickstarter campaign early in 2020 where you could get lifetime access (and more advanced features) for a relatively small amount of money. After the Kickstarter ended, they introduced a grace period where you could get cloud service access a little more expensive than the Kickstarter prices but still very affordable. That grace period now is over and you can now choose to pay a monthly or yearly fee to keep Vector running. The price is [[https://www.digitaldreamlabs.com/pages/vector-subscription|75$ per year or 10$ per month]].
-If you have a problem with that because you bought Vector for the expensive original price you should take your complaints to Anki, cause those went bancrupt. DDL are keeping your robot alive and that costs money, simple as that. And they are not responsible for Anki's demise.
 If you say "but I just bought the robot, why do I have to pay again?": You should complain to the party selling you the robot without telling you about the state of things. If you do not like the fee, return the robot to the seller.
+**So I did defend DDL on the server cost and subscription in the past. I do not do that any longer, since they raised the price from 7$/45 $ to the ridiculous amount shown above. And for that price they were not able to implement any real new functions since they bought the assets in the end 2019. In addition they degraded Vector, e.g. he does find back to his server far less reliable than in the past. What I also do not defend ist their bad project management, their bad support, their awful communication and their unprofessional behaviour blocking users by the dozen or not implementing industry-proven support solutions and project management.
+**
+DDL released Escape Pod for the Kickstarter backers. A local server you can tether Vector to. But it is buggy and missing features, even if they try to sell it for a whopping 99 Dollars. That's a lot for an unfinished, buggy software. **Do not buy it**.
+You do no longer need to pay DDL: You can install the open source local server [[https://github.com/kercre123/wire-prod-pod|Wire-Pod]] and just run him locally. leaving DDL behind.
 ==== But what if DDL also goes bancrupt? ====
-Well, let's hope it will not come to that, but parts of the Kickstarter campaing were the **Escape Pod**, a local server that will let you run Vector without a cloud server, and **OSKR** ("Open Source Kit for Robots") that will enable third parties to create custom firmwares for Vector. So in the future Vector will be able to function without a company. When Escape Pod and the open source kit are in the wild I guess that a lot of fans and other third parties will develop possibilities to run Vector without cloud servers and do lots of other new things with him, as already happens with the SDK.
+One part of the Kickstarter campaing was the **Escape Pod**, a local server that will let you run Vector without a cloud server, and **OSKR** ("Open Source Kit for Robots") that will enable third parties to create custom firmwares for Vector.
+**Escape Pod** was released, but it is buggy and feature incomplete. Despite these facts they try to sell it to you for 99 Dollars. As I said above: Do not buy it. Install [[https://github.com/kercre123/wire-prod-pod|Wire-Pod]] instead. It's free.
+**OSKR** is nearly nonexistent, over two and a half years after the end of the Kickstarter. Nearly nothing promised in th eKickstarter for OSKR was delivered. There is no toolchain, not tools, and the robot sources were not open sourced as was promised. At the end of 2022 OSKR was pulled completely and is no longer available, not even to Kickstarter backers that are entitled to it.
+All in all Digital Dream Labs looks like a scam.
 ===== Is there a possibility to switch Vector off? =====
@@ Line 119: / Line 129: @@
 This is one I had myself and I tried multiple things before I was able to solve it. This worked for me, it may not work for you (I use an Android device).
+  * Go to "Apps" and clear the apps data and cache.
   * Deinstall the Vector app from your phone.
   * Shutdown Vector by pressing his button for five seconds.
@@ Line 149: / Line 160: @@
 ===== My Vector is broken, can it be repaired? =====
-No and yes, it depends (on the exact problem). There is no offcial customer support anymore since Anki went bancrupt. The new owner, DDL, is working on new possibilities, but since they are located in the USA, most probably only US Vector owners will be able to benefit from this (at the moment, this is highly speculative, obviously).
+No and yes, it depends (on the exact problem). There is no offcial customer support anymore since Anki went bancrupt. The new owner, DDL, is working on new possibilities, but since they are located in the USA, most probably only US Vector owners will be able to benefit from this (at the moment, this is highly speculative, obviously - and I would guess that is in the far future).
 Some problems may be solved by yourself, if you are able to use a screwdriver and a soldering iron, most prominently a [[modding:battery|failing battery]]. If you are not able to do this, do not despair, look for help, a relative or friend you know as a tinkerer will surely be able to help you. I fear at the moment [[#vector_s_display_is_failing_what_can_i_do|nothing can be done about a failing display]].
@@ Line 159: / Line 170: @@
 If your Vector shows a thermometer sign on his screen, he is overheating. The environment temperature may be too high. Have a look at this [[modding:heatsink|article in the modding section]]
+As a rule of thumb the environment temp should be below 30 degrees Celsius.
 ===== What do the blinking lights on the cube mean? =====
@@ Line 167: / Line 180: @@
 The battery is empty, insert a new one. Be careful: There are two battery types with the same size but different voltages, you need one that delivers 1.5 Volts. The type designation is "N", "LR1" or "Lady cell".
+===== Can I use rechargeable batteries in the cube? =====
+Short anser is: Yes, you can. There was a notice on that from a former Anki member [[https://discordapp.com/channels/527874754342944770/527877393516462105/733111916024692828|on the Project Victor Discord]]:
+//Anki did some testing on NiMH batteries in cubes. We did not find a risk of damage to the cubes. We did find a risk to the batteries (by over-discharge) if left in the cube for months without a charge. We also noticed the cube lifetime was not very long, and the battery indicator didn't work as well. For the reasons above, we advised customer care that NiMH batteries weren't supported.
+But if you're using these batteries and you're happy, I don't think you have anything to worry about. I think we were just trying to protect people from being frustrated that their game time was too short or NiMH batteries were failing (due to over-discharge).//
+Please keep in mind that rechargeable batteries do have less capacity than alcaline or zinc-carbon based cells, so they will not last as long as those. But since you can recharge them, that is less of a concern. The battery of my first vector did work over a year, so if you need to charge a NiMH cell e.g. every six months, I find that completely acceptable. Rechargeable batteries as a rule of thumb have way less environmental impact than throw-away-batteries.
 ===== Oh noes! My Vector fell into water! =====
@@ Line 177: / Line 199: @@
 If it was just water: Dry him with towels or paper towels. Then put him into a sealed box with some packs of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_gel|silica gel]]. You can find silica gel packs in electronics packaging. Let it in there for a few hours then remove the silicagel packs, put them into the microwave for a minute and again put them into the box with Vector. You should do this multiple times.
-"But I do not have any silicagel packs". Well, there is rice. The information on rice varies depending on who you ask. Some say the drying with rice is a modern myth, others say it works. The truth is somewhere between those opiions. In fact rice will collect humidity from it's environment. So if you rice was lying around openly or not in a sealed box, it may have already saturated itself from the environment humidity and will be of no use for drying the robot. But if you use a fresh, vacuum-sealed package of rice, this will work, the rice will definitely collect humidity. But be careful, rice tends to have fine starch powder in its package and nothing of that must get into the robot. So use a sealable box as in the decription above, fill it with fresh rice so that Vector still fits and close the lid. Let him in there for at least a day.
+"But I do not have any silicagel packs". Well, there is rice. The information on rice varies depending on who you ask. Some say the drying with rice is a modern myth, others say it works. The truth is somewhere between those opinions. In fact rice will collect humidity from it's environment. So if your rice was lying around more or less openly or not in a sealed box, it may have already saturated itself from the environment humidity and will be of no use for drying the robot. But if you use a fresh, vacuum-sealed package of rice, this will work, the rice will definitely collect humidity. But be careful, rice tends to have fine starch powder in its package and nothing of that must get into the robot. So use a sealable box as in the decription above, fill it with fresh rice from a vacuum package so that Vector still fits and close the lid. Let him in there for at least a day, longer is better.
+**DO NOT** try to dry Vector with a hair dryer or a heater, as it adds more energy to the process and that increases the possibility of corrosion.
+After doing the things depicted above try to activate him. If he acts funny or shows errors, switch him off and do more drying, but it is possible he was damaged irreparably. However, with pure water you definitely hav a chance that he will continue to function.
-**DO NOT** try to dry Vector with a hair dryer or a heater, as it adds more energy to the process and that increases the corrosion.
+**Good luck!**
-After the things depicted above try to activate him. If he acts funny or shows errors, switch him off and do more drying, but it is possible he was damaged irreparably. However, with pure water you definitely hav a chance that he will continue to function.
+==== If you are confident with electronics repair or already dismantled Vector ====
-Good luck!
+... e.g. to change his battery: dismantle him and let the dismantled parts dry. That will decrease the drying time considerably, lowering the corrosion risk. You may want to consider to unsolder the battery until he dried completely.
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