Anki Vector: Autonomous mini robot with charm and its own SDK put to the test

Page 2: "Hey, Vector!" - Voice commands & Alexa

Like Alexa, Siri & Co., Vector needs an internet connection to process voice commands and answer knowledge questions. If you call it with "Hey, Vector!", LEDs on its back light up blue and signal active voice input. Although this takes place in the Amazon cloud, Anki promises – unlike Amazon Alexa – to delete the voice snippets immediately after processing. Anki dedicates a separate FAQ to the topic of privacy and security.

Communication with the Anki servers is always encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS), which is why we were unable to look into the data packets. However, according to our observations, Vector only communicates with the Internet when voice input is active. Exception: automatic firmware updates during the nightly maintenance window.

Vector already knows a considerable number of voice commands:

"What's the weather in ...?"
"What time is it?"
"Set a timer"
"Take a photo"
"Look at me"
"Come here"
"Start/stop exploring"
"How are you?"
"My name is ..."
"Who am I?" (or "What's my name?"
"Play Blackjack"
"Give me a fist bump" (or "Give me high five")
"Listen to the music"
"Find you cube"
"Pick up your cube"
"Bring me your cube"
"Do a wheelstand"
"Happy holidays"
"Happy New Year"
"I have a question"

"I have a question" has a special role to play. The command puts Vector into an extended mode in which it can answer questions about people, places, general knowledge, sports, flight status, stock market values, nutritional values, time zones, unit and currency conversions and word definitions. However, Vector is far from being able to keep up with Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri in this discipline.

Vector optionally supports the digital assistant Amazon Alexa (currently only with the US English language setting). If you link your Amazon account to the Vector app, you can then access all the digital assistant's functions and skills via Vector – except music and video playback, reading books aloud and telephony.

If you call "Alexa!", Vector's googly eyes are replaced by a glowing blue ring (see video). As long as Alexa is active, Vector behaves like a mobile Echo speaker; its robot functions cannot be controlled via Alexa. As Alexa communicates directly with the Amazon servers, the same data protection concerns apply here as for Echo & Co.

Incidentally, Vector reacts much more quickly to "Alexa!" than to its own activation word "Hey, Vector", but sometimes too hastily. In the test, Alexa responded more frequently than an Echo Dot, for example, even without mentioning the keyword. Conversely, it is more difficult to end Alexa's torrent of words prematurely with Vector; sometimes only pressing the button on Vector's back helps. Unfortunately, the activation word for Alexa cannot be customized on Vector.

Face recognition could be improved

Thanks to its wide-angle 720p camera and built-in face recognition, Vector can in principle remember up to 20 people and address them by name. As the UK import version only "understood" and spoke English (US, EN, AU) at the time of testing, this only works to a limited extent with German first names: "Volker" then becomes "Falcon" or "Voltaire".

Changing hairstyles, glasses, hats or facial hair throw Vector off his stride: a colleague he met with bangs didn't recognize Vector the next day because she had a different hairstyle. Although Vector's camera has a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels, the image quality is poor, especially in dim lighting conditions, meaning that the robot sometimes fails to (re)recognize you.

Incidentally, the camera stream is only transmitted to the local network, so you don't have to worry about someone watching you from the Internet. The stream can only be accessed via the protected access of the Software Development Kit.

Vector's scope of delivery includes a plastic cube marked with various symbols and equipped with four RGB LEDs. Vector can roll it around, retrieve it on command or use it as a starting aid for a wheelie. The symbols on the cube help Vector to recognize the orientation and position of the cube.

Vector communicates with the cube via Bluetooth and can therefore control its LEDs. That's all it can do with the cube at the moment. The cube therefore gives the impression that Anki is only including it so that the shovel arms inherited from Cozmo have a use.

The status of the Cube can be checked via the Vector app. It contains a replaceable "Lady" type battery (AM-5/LR-1), which should last for around 40 hours of play with Vector.