
Show HN: I'm a robot tech enthusiast and this is my robot website - zerzeru
https://www.personalrobots.biz/
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kissgyorgy
The most advanced, most functional is Vector: [https://www.anki.com/en-
us/vector](https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector)

There is a Python SDK available for it so you can fully control every aspect
of Vector:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzTIp2tHwgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzTIp2tHwgs)

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jackhack
For those considering this purchase: proceed with great caution and be sure
your seller has a return/refund policy!

Perhaps the new Vector 'bot (which appears to be almost identical in all
aspects as Anki's first revision of this bot, Cozmo) works fine but I won't
risk $250 to find out. ("fool me once...") You see, Cozmo was plagued with
hardware issues ("connection lost") making it unusable. My suspicion is a
battery unable to satisfy the current draw, or a voltage regulator not up to
the task, causing a brownout and CPU crash. By the way, no user-servicable
parts, and Anki will not sell a replacement battery.

I bought mine for me and my kids to play around with programming -- it was a
total waste of money. I could never get it running for more than a few minutes
at a time, and startup might require a half-hour of attempts (replace on
charger, move arm to boot up, reboot, connect to cozmo network, connect app,
cozmo wakes up ... and crashed after a couple seconds.) Once it does connect
it may run for 20 minutes or 2 minutes before quitting suddenly. And, while
running, it's great! Cute as can be. But product reviews (amazon, etc.) are
full of this complaint so many others have experienced it.

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ASalazarMX
Even if it worked flawlessly, I wouldn't feel comfortable buying a remote-
controlled mobile camera with microphone, even if it's cute as hell. I want my
robots offline.

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thekhatribharat
I think a YouTube channel where you tinker with these kits and offer detailed
reviews could be more useful. Something like Unbox Therapy, for personal
robots. :)

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zerzeru
nice idea :)))!

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bzbz
Not to be pessimistic, but you’ve been hoodwinked if you think this is a
“personal site” without financial incentive.

This looks like just the type of website that people make to cash out with
referral codes to amazon (or in this case, banggood).

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kerbalspacepro
I honestly don't get it. What of these robots are functional? There is a
"Toys" heading but... they all look like toys? Every single one?

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raesene9
cool site.

In this line, one thing I've been looking for, but unable to find a good
option for, is a robot which you can control over a wi-fi network which has a
camera on it and it can roll round your house.

So my use case is to check up on my cats when I'm away. I've not seen a load
of good options for this...

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bibyte
What about a RC car with a camera ?

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wedesoft
I used the Zumo platform with a Raspberry Pi W instead of an Arduino board. I
added a cardboard casing to house all the components.

[https://www.wedesoft.de/robot/2018/06/21/zumo/](https://www.wedesoft.de/robot/2018/06/21/zumo/)

Update: Also see Explaining Computers video at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZSiqj0NZgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZSiqj0NZgU)

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nullandvoid
Very cool site!

Looking at the home section it still looks like we have a while to go till our
robot overlords can replace us around the home - but it's none the less
interesting seeing bots like "Kuri" taking a non-conventional approach to how
I considered house robots to head ( I.E Just follows you around - can play
music etc it's more of a companion than anything else but still looks neat )

Off topic as well but I like how you are dealing with the criticism /
suggestions on the site even when rather direct ( removing notifications etc
by the time I just arrived! )

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zerzeru
thanks, I would like to get more quality robots content.. Working on it! To
tell the truth the most potential ( aside Kuri Project) I saw on the open
source OTTO series of DIY robots. Regarding the comments .. i'm learning a lot
from this discussion tread and I'm very happy to receive feedback :)

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rick22
I don't understand why a Robot with basic movement and limited set of actions
like picking an object is not popular. The idea is to make apps for them like
mobile apps that will do specific jobs like keeping the room tidy or washing
dishes. Is building a robot really hard than it looks (without software
included) ?

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dawie
Drop the ads. It takes away from an awesome site

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zerzeru
I'm seriously thinking about it :)

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jcims
You could look at doing sponsored spots, kind of like digg, so the content
flows and the site won't just be a pure drain on the pocketbook.

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msadowski
That's very cool! Would love to see more examples in the future and maybe some
examples that are somewhat in between the consumer and pro market.

I've been trying to find a 4 wheel skid steering robot with a decent payload
capacity for sensor testing and they are surprisingly rare.

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tjaad
Cool site. I'd wish you had a Twitter account or newsletter so I can follow
you!

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kkshetty
+1 on the Twitter account idea. Ditched my FB account a long time ago.

Perhaps you could use one of those social media tools to automatically cross-
post to Twitter?

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kasbah
Nice site, subscribed to the RSS feed. Would love if you reviewed the HariFun
style quad-ped.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pos9pE8xwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pos9pE8xwU)

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johnchristopher
Nice project. You may benefit from an about page or a profile page to get to
know you and why you set up the website.

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KineticLensman
There is an 'About' at the bottom but all this seems to do is to return to the
top of the page - it doesn't seem to have any profile info.

Also, why not have an 'about' link on the header bar?

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inetknght
I am also a robot tech enthusiast but I haven't yet built robots. I want to.
Great site

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sharpshadow
If humanity fails today this would be a throwback how far we came.

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ChlorophZek
Really nice website, you deserve more attention!

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nkg
Great idea. I hope to see more content soon.

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johnchristopher
Nice logo :).

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codeduck
NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

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zerzeru
I applied successful for a ssl certificate :( any idea why this is happening?
the https version of the website works

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giancarlostoro
They might be running a browser with outdated hardcoded certs. I noticed in
older versions of Ubuntu SSL is broken for Midori on most sites including
google.com so they might have the same issue.

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almostarockstar
Please don't ask to show me notifications as soon as I load your site. Nobody
wants your notifications.

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zerzeru
I disabled them . thanks for your feedback :)

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hutzlibu
I would add a button, like "keep me updated", where people who want them, can
turn them on.

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emilfihlman
Your site css is a bit broken. The tagline "The World is ready for the robot
revolution" is hidden underneath the header bar when on top (on Surface Pro
3).

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KineticLensman
For me (Opera on Windows 10 with Privacy Badger and uMatrix) the site seems to
have mostly loaded okay.

> The tagline "The World is ready for the robot revolution" is hidden
> underneath the header bar

For me the top of the tagline is partially obscured but there is enough
visible for it to be readable. Still needs fixing.

The 'Scroll Down' button. Hmmmm. It should perhaps be called 'Hide header'
since this is the main effect. Once you've clicked it, you have to use the
normal scroll bar anyway.

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enriquto
The site is empty when browsing with an ad blocker.

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mnw21cam
It's also empty when viewed with javascript turned off.

