I feel less like I’m going to break it when I hold Vector in my hands. It’s got a sleeker, matte black finish and noticeably superior build quality. And from an aesthetic perspective, Vector is also much better designed than Cozmo. I particularly love the feature that lets Vector dance to music you play.
A lot of these new skills and games are really neat and fun to play around with, at least a few times before the novelty wears off. It is, in effect, a lightweight digital voice assistant packed into a cute little robot. The robot can now play you in a hand of blackjack, tell you the current weather, perform currency conversion, and do much, much more than Cozmo could. That’s allowed Anki to bring a bunch of new features to Vector, and there are a lot of them. It’s got more powerful internal components, and that means it’s doing a lot more onboard processing and relying less on your smartphone and its internet connection to perform tasks. The best endorsement of Anki’s new robot is the simplest one: if you liked Cosmo, you’ll love Vector. After spending a couple of weeks with my very own Vector robot, I can say the company has built a more skilled and interesting robot, but one that’s still very much a toy you might get bored and forget about.īuy for $249.99 from Anki Buy for $249.99 from Amazon Buy for $249.99 from Best Buy The company hopes Vector, while more expensive than Cozmo at $249.99, makes good on the promise of its predecessor, all in a much more capable package. Vector is the company’s second-generation toy robot, and it looks and acts much like Cozmo does, but with a handful of new features and expanded capabilities.
Cozmo could play some rudimentary games and perform some low-key interactions, but after messing around with it for 20 minutes, you kind of ran out of stuff to do. Harder still is making a toy robot that’s useful or fun for extended periods of time. The issue is that selling pricey toy robots, even ones as cute as Cozmo, is a bit harder than selling racecars. Cozmo was an adorable Pixar character come to life, and it was quite the sight to watch it in action as it roved around your desk or coffee table making emotive sounds like a pet settling into a new home. That way, young kids (and nostalgic parents) could steer the company’s cars around a configurable track using a mobile app, without needing the skill or know-how to play a proper racing video game.īut with Cozmo, the WALL-E-like toy the company introduced two years ago, Anki fully realized its vision as a robot maker. Founded by Carnegie Mellon roboticists, the company built a reputation selling products that took the shape of standard toys, but that could operate all on their own using complex software. It could be that the company is preparing the ground for new online functionalities and new sources of income : Cozmo 2.0 may require a subscription in future, just like Vector 1.0 and 2.0, but so far those are just my thoughts.Anki, the toy maker most well-known for its automated miniature race cars, has always billed itself as an artificial intelligence company with a knack for building robots. Like in a sci-fi movie, could you imagine that in few click, using an “OTA Upgrade”, you could choose to load Vector or Cozmo personalities ? cozmo2.0-packaging Having a common design is convenient to reduce cost of manufacturing process, packing and replace parts.
#Anki vector vs cozmo software
We can only speculate : Cozmo 2.0 can be a Vector 2.0 in disguise or vice versa, they may just run a different software firmware, sharing the same factory and the same design.
You may already noticed that the specs and the upgrades are now aligned to Vector 2.0.
#Anki vector vs cozmo full
The new robot will receive an additional 30%+ battery increase, a better camera ( from 640p to 1048p), a full colour screen and four obstacle sensors( instead of one in the original version). Cozmo 2.0, an upgraded and renewed version of our beloved Cozmo, appeared in the Digital Dream Labs website! The robot can be pre-ordered at 197.00$ now with expected delivery early as May 2021.